Things People Blame the Jews For, Volume LXXV: World War I

CNN reports:

TikTok this week removed an inflammatory anti-Israel video posted by celebrity beauty mogul and influencer Huda Kattan.

I've never been so happy to be unable to relate to any part of a sentence.

But what were the "anti-Israel" sentiments being expressed? 

Kattan, the founder and face of the billion-dollar brand Huda Beauty, shared a video to her more than 11 million followers on TikTok, accusing Israel of orchestrating World War I, World War II, the September 11 terrorist attacks and Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7.

[....]

“All of the conspiracy theories coming out and a lot of evidence behind them — that Israel has been behind World War I, World War II, September 11, October 7 — they allowed all of this stuff to happen. Is this crazy?” Kattan said on camera in her since-removed TikTok post, which included other unfounded claims about Israel. “Like, I had a feeling — I was like, ‘Are they behind every world war?’ Yes.”

Alert readers might immediately notice that some of these events occurred before Israel was established. Perhaps the more forgiving among us might overlook that problem for World War II -- Israel was founded only three years after its end, and it was such a Jewy war after all.

But World War I? That's a new one on me. We didn't even have the Balfour Declaration at the start of World War I! Roping Israel into it is really an extra special stretch.

I'd also be remiss if I didn't flag the interesting language "allowed all of this stuff to happen." What I like about this is that it takes for granted that Israel and the Jews control the entirety of global affairs, and is only mad at their non-interventionist mindset. I suppose once you've decided that Jews are like all-powerful gods, theodicy becomes our problem too.

All this talk of global Jewish domination does remind me of a thought I once had, though. Among all the people who think the Jews run the world, there must be somebody who thinks we're doing an okay job of it, right? I'm just imagining some guy in a Peoria bar, overhearing grousing about the damn Jews who run our society, slamming his beer down and yelling "Hey! They're trying their best, okay? I'd like to see you juggle running the banks and the media and the universities and Hollywood and the United Nations!"

And honestly? That guy would be right. It's hard managing all of that at once, and nobody gives us an iota of credit for it.

Israel is How Europe Can Stick It To Trump

Over the past few days, we've seen a spate of hitherto solid Israel allies in Europe announce they'll be recognizing the state of Palestine. France kicked things off, and it was swiftly followed by the UK and Canada. (There also has been an interesting wave of Arab states calling on Hamas to demilitarize and relinquish power).

I'm not going to comment here on the substance of the decision. Briefly, it is obvious that Palestinians deserve self-determination in a recognized state, and I'm unpersuaded by those who are arguing the move will backfire against the Palestinians. As for those who claim that recognition "rewards Hamas", I say that, if we are to think of this decision in those terms, it's better to see this as not as rewarding Hamas for 10/7, but as punishing Israel for its conduct after 10/7.

But that's not what I want to focus on here. Rather, I want to explore a different question: Why now? What made these countries take this step now?

Obviously, there is not one single answer to that. But in addition to some of the obvious factors -- increased sympathy for the Palestinian cause and increased frustration with Israeli intransigence chief among them -- I suggest an additional cause is that stepping out on Israel is a comparatively cheap and insulated way to symbolically repudiate Trump and Trumpism.

The Trump administration's pivot away from our traditional allies and alliances has been met with a justified mixture of alarm of fury from those we've abandoned. From escalating trade wars to threats of annexation, Trump has done unprecedented damage to America's global standing. People want to see their leaders punch back. But many of the most obvious avenues for retaliation come with substantial risks of their own. As idiotic and self-destructive as tariffs are for the United States, it remains the case that European countries must be careful and adroit in their own trade negotiations. Symbolism has its place there, but it can't be the whole story; missteps can exact real and serious tangible damage on one's own people.

But sticking it to Israel offers much of that same symbolic flouting of Trump, at a much lower risk. Most of the "damage" there, if there is any, will be externalized, not internalized. To the extent some countries might have been reluctant to step out against Israel for fear of alienating the United States, that ship has sailed; today these countries are looking for opportunities to signal they're standing up to the American madman. And while the Trump administration might make noises about retaliation, I think they're fighting on too many fronts for protecting Israel diplomatically to be a serious priority -- and that's even if one believes that Trump's Israel policy is based on sincere ideological commitment, which I don't. If one thinks Trump is just using "Israel" as an excuse to enact various forms of domestic repression, the ultimate disinterest can be doubled. In essence, Europe recognizing Palestine (a) looks increasingly justified and sensible given recent Israeli conduct and (b) offers an opportunity to be seen as standing up to Trump, in a context where tangible blowback is likely to be minimal. No wonder it's looking more attractive!

None of this should be seen as warranting any sympathy for Israel of course. They've chosen their course -- lashing themselves to the most extreme and vicious iteration of global rightwing ultranationalism -- and they have to live with the consequences. That's the risk of hitching your wagon entirely to a single powerful but widely loathed patron -- if daddy gets distracted, you're on your own and you've made yourself an awfully tempting target. Once again, when the right is done finding Israel useful, it will leave it in the wreckage.

The Impossibility of Bibi Agreeing To Peace

A hypothetical question for Israel supporters.

Suppose Israel was asked to craft the contours of a peace deal in Gaza. And suppose they were allowed to put any conditions they wanted into that deal, subject to just two limitations:

1. Palestinians cannot be compelled, directly or indirectly, to leave the Gaza Strip;
2. Palestinians must be given full citizenship and democratic rights in whatever sovereign nation agrees to control Gaza.

The first is essentially a rule against ethnic cleansing, the second a rule against apartheid.

Beyond those stipulations, Israel is allowed to put any conditions it likes into the deal.

I do not claim, to be clear, that so long as these conditions are met any agreement between Israel and Palestine would necessarily be just. Rather, I present these as the absolute, barest-of-the-bare minimum redlines that must be respected no matter how one-sided the remaining conditions are in Israel's favor. And the point of the exercise is that, so long as these minimums are acceded to, Israel can load up the "deal" as favorably as it wants.

Given that, my question is simple: could this Israeli government come up with a deal that meets these parameters?

And my suspicion is no, it couldn't. The "unthinkable thought" of 2019 is now a reality. And the impossibility of Israel agreeing to a peace deal that abides by even this extraordinary minimums is a large part of why Israel drags this war on and on and on.

Start with the second proviso. The framing is a requirement of equal citizenship in "whatever sovereign nation controls Gaza", and that ambiguity is intentional: it could encompass an independent Palestinian state, or it encompass Israeli annexation. But of course, this makes the dilemma apparent: Bibi and his coalition are dead-set against allowing an independent Palestinian state to exist, but they are also implacably opposed to incorporating Gaza Palestinians into the Israeli state (at least, on equal citizenship).

This (for Bibi) conundrum inspires increasingly desperate and fanciful efforts to escape the impossible bind -- for example, proposing that some other Arab state assume control of Gaza (for obvious reasons, nobody seems interested in stepping up). The increasingly open gestures towards full ethnic cleansing also can be understood through this "dilemma" -- the fewer Palestinians who remain in Gaza, the less daunting annexation looks.

And ultimately, the impossibility of resolving this problem makes all the other conditions we sometimes talk about moot. Questions about return of the hostages, demilitarization, right of return, reparations, recognition of Israel as a Jewish state -- I don't want to say they're unimportant, but while Bibi is in charge they're epiphenomenal. Even if Israel got what it says it wants along all these fronts (immediate return of the hostages, a demilitarized Palestinian state, rejection of right of return, compensation for 10/7, recognition), I genuinely don't think that this government could say "yes" to the deal if it meant either accepting an independent Palestinian state or incorporating Palestinians into Israel as full and equal citizens. Maybe if you loaded up some comically evil and implausible conditions ("reparations to the tune of $1 trillion/year") -- but that would just emphasize that the response of the Israeli government to this hypothetical would be to search frantically for a way to not make the deal.

For what it's worth, this toxic feature of Bibi and his cronies does I think mark out a tangible and meaningful difference between the current Israeli governing coalition and its realistic rivals. It's become popular to denigrate the belief (or "fantasy", as Ezra Klein said) among liberal Zionists that "Bibi is the problem" by observing that a core hostility to Palestinian rights and equality is shared among a much broader segment of Israeli society (including leading opposition figures) than many would care to admit. There is, regrettably, something to this critique -- but the hypothetical I'm pursuing here does I think suggest how it might be overstated, because I do think that the main opposition would be substantially different along these lines. They have no eagerness to create a Palestinian state, but it is not an immovable object for them; opposition to it does not lie at the center of their entire ideological being. It's not guaranteed or even easy, but given the right conditions, one can imagine them making a deal. With Bibi, one can't -- and that's a big difference.

But in the meantime, it is Bibi in control of Israel, and with Bibi in charge of Israel the impossibility of resolving this problem is a critical reason why the war continues. Agreeing on the contours of a peace deal only is relevant when peace is at hand. So long as Israel remains at war, it can delay having to decide an impossible choice. (The fact that once the war ends Bibi probably has to reckon with his criminal charges is also a factor, and a related one -- it goes to the point that Bibi wants the war to continue and is endangered by the prospect of it ending, no matter what the terms are).

In a different context almost 20 years ago, Ehud Olmert mocked those who obsessed over the exact acreage of a peace deal as having supposedly existential stakes for Israel's existence. 

“With them, it is all about tanks and land and controlling territories and controlled territories and this hilltop and that hilltop,” he said. “All these things are worthless.”

He added, “Who thinks seriously that if we sit on another hilltop, on another hundred meters, that this is what will make the difference for the State of Israel’s basic security?”

The hills don't matter, but pretending like the hills do matter, and matter so much that we couldn't possibly make a deal unless we are absolutely guaranteed to control these hills is a way of forestalling having to make a decision on the deal. And the same thing feels true in Gaza. All the talk about needing to destroy one more Hamas battalion, root out one more tunnel network, take out one more "second-in-command" -- who seriously thinks that is what will make the difference? They're delaying mechanisms -- so long as Israel can say "we still must do these military things", they can avoid having to commit to a choice on peace they're fundamentally unwilling to make. Like "airstrikes while you wait", it's something to do while you can't think of what else to do.

All that said, I open to being persuaded otherwise. Tell me a set of provisions -- I wouldn't even demand that they be realistic, so long as they aren't utterly absurdist -- that comports with the above two limitations that you think Bibi would accept, and I'll consider it. But I'm skeptical they exist.

Thomas Massie Opposes All Foreign Aid. Also, He's Antisemitic

The JTA has an article about the backlash AOC is experiencing for voting against an amendment that would defund Israel's "Iron Dome" defense system. It's interesting reading, and I'm curious whether the backlash will have the desired effect (pushing AOC to a more uncompromisingly anti-Israel position) or the exact opposite (convincing her that there is no pleasing these people and she's better off ignoring them).

But that's not the part I want to talk about. Rather, there was a tiny aside in the article that I suspect most of you didn't notice but which jumped out at me.

While AOC voted against the amendment, the article lists off the six House Representatives who voted in favor. The two sponsors, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Ilhan Omar, plus four others:

In addition to Omar and Greene, Democrats Al Green of Texas, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Summer Lee of Pennsylvania also supported it, as well as Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican who opposes all foreign aid.

Do you see it? It's that explanatory qualifier for Massie. The other five are implied to be motivated by anti-Israel hostility, but Massie is presented as operating on a larger isolationist principle. We shouldn't group him in with the other five.

The thing is, it's true that Massie opposes all foreign aid. But it's also true that he's one of the most antisemitic members of Congress, and his votes against Iron Dome should absolutely be read in that light. He was the sole vote against a resolution condemning antisemitism. He introduced a "Dual Loyalty Disclosure" bill clearly inspired by neo-Nazis who think Jews are secret Israeli agents, for crying out loud.

So why isn't that the relevant explanatory context? Yes, Massie is an isolationist, but there's a long history of paleo-conservative isolationists guzzling antisemitic broth, and Massie seems clearly to be of that ilk. Yet for some reason, the instinct is to elide that history -- no, worse, to actively obscure it. One could defend doing with him what JTA did with his three colleagues -- simply noting their votes without elaboration. But if one is going to single Massie out and say "this guy needs more context", it is absurd to offer a framing that is predominantly exculpatory to the guy who once tweeted about pitting "Zionism" against "American patriotism".

It's often suggested that Republicans think they have a get-out-of-antisemitism-free card so long as they are "pro-Israel", and too many Jewish institutions accept that card as fair currency. But I really think the rot runs deeper than that -- there's just a deep, fundamental resistance to identifying Republican antisemitism at all. Massie is a clear case -- he's certainly not "pro-Israel" under any normal definition, but even he gets favorable framing of the sort that would never be extended to the Ilhan Omars of the world (even though I think Massie's "Zionism" vs "patriotism" tweet is far more egregiously antisemitic than, say, Omar's "Benjamins" remarks). I'm not going to say it's impossible to overcome -- Greene's "Jewish Space Lasers" bit seems to have penetrated -- but it seems that even anti-Israel Republicans still benefit from the halo that assumes, against all evidence and logic, that Republicans who might appear to be acting on hostility to Jews must have some nobler or more reasonable excuse behind their actions.

Abstaining on Mamdani

Even after his upset primary win a few weeks ago, there have been some Democrats who have been trying to rally an "independent" candidate to beat Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani in the general election. It's an endeavor I view as scurrilous, for the same reason I found third party protest voting in 2024 or 2020 or 2016 scurrilous: Democrats should support the results of the Democratic primary, and certainly should not risk letting in a reactionary because their heart just isn't moved by the Democratic nominee. There may be extraordinary exceptions to this rule, but Zohran Mamdani is not one of them. If Joe Walsh gets it, the rest of us can too.

But to be honest, I view this as a bit of a moot point, because the attempt to rally an anti-Mamdani seems to be sputtering.  As the Wall Street Journal puts it, the anti-Mamdani initiative suffers from missing a few key ingredients, such as "a positive message" and "a candidate" and "enough votes to win." Seems problematic.

This broader fizzling out has, I think, a more specified Jewish parallel. Reports of Jewish loathing of Mamdani are wildly overstated, but there's no doubt many have concerns, and some of those concerns are legitimate. While I think the criticisms of his condemnations of the Colorado and DC attacks are wildly unfair, his statement immediately following 10/7 was genuinely bad, and Jews are allowed to find worrisome his support for BDS and his refusal to denounce the slogan "globalize the intifada."

Yet while there's been a lot of media froth about these issues, my sense is these concerns haven't actually manifested in widespread Jewish backlash to Mamdani. There are concerns, but not panic. And more often than not, it seems, many NYC Jews are just not venturing that loud of an opinion at all, even where they do disagree with Mamdani, on issue areas that in years past we might have really seen a widespread blowup. What's going on?

My mind returns to a post I wrote at the very tail-end of the Obama administration, following his decision to, for the first and only time, abstain from voting on or vetoing an anti-Israel UN Security Council resolution reaffirming that the Israeli settlements in the West Bank were unlawful (you might remember the abstention as the one Tim Walz voted to condemn).

The usual suspects on the right went ballistic about the Obama administration's "betrayal of Israel". And for my part, I was well-familiar with all the arguments against enabling such UN resolutions -- the general bias of the institution, its naked double-standards where Israel was concerned, specific language in the resolution itself that seemed to downplay legitimate Jewish connection to Jerusalem. But my post was about why, in spite of all that, I just could not bring myself to get mad about it.

But I just can't bring myself to be angry. I read the usual suspects falling over themselves in histrionic rage -- Mort Klein ranting that "Obama’s anti-Semitism runs so deep that he also apparently needed to drive one more knife into Israel’s back," Netanyahu saying he "colluded against Israel", David French fulminating against the supposed "50 years of foreign policy" undone by a single abstention -- and I just can't do it. I can't.

The ADL -- which murmurs empty platitudes about the President's right to implement policy when picking avowedly anti-two-stater David Friedman for Ambassador -- suddenly is "incredibly disappointed" that the Obama administration followed consistent American policy in opposition to the settlements? The JFNA -- which (and this was forwarded to me by an AIPAC-attending friend of mine) "has not said ONE THING about Islamophobia and anti-Semitism from Trump and his appointees" -- sure found its voice on this one.

[....]

Will this resolution do any good? I doubt it. It's empty words from a body whose words deservedly carry little credit. Still, much of international diplomacy is the art of using empty words to send messages. Maybe the message here is that breathless hysterics about Obama selling Israel out! over and over and over again won't carry the day forever. Certainly that's a message I can get behind, regardless of whether anyone pays attention to the substance of the resolution.

I just can't take seriously anymore people who simultaneously decry America's policy towards Syria as being naught but words, while breathlessly characterizing one -- one -- abstention on a UN resolution that is consistent with longstanding American policy towards Israel as an act of "aggression". One would think that those "mere words" would pale in comparison to $38 billion in aid America will be giving Israel thanks to Obama's leadership. The UN is not the only entity whose words carry little credit these days. I've completely lost whatever confidence I had in mainline Jewish groups to maintain a sense of proportion and principle when it comes to defending a secure, democratic, Jewish state of Israel.

The UN resolution won't accomplish anything. Perhaps its only tangible impact is that it is felt as a rebuke by the Israeli government. Given their behavior over the past eight years towards the Obama administration and the American Jewish community writ large, I can't even be mad about that. You're not getting everything you want, all the time, from your "friends"? Welcome to the club.

So I abstain on this fight. Why shouldn't I? If I believe -- and I do -- that the settlements are "a" (not "the") obstacle to peace, and I believe -- and I do -- that Israeli settlement on territories in the West Bank should be contingent on a final, negotiated status agreement with the Palestinians, and I believe -- and I do -- that part of any remotely plausible peace plan means that not everyone will get to live on the precise acre of land that they wish, why should I muster up any outrage on this resolution? Because its verbiage isn't perfect? When is it ever? Because the UN is biased? Of course it is, but so what? Because the Netanyahu administration is trying its level best to negotiate a two-state solution and this throws a wrench in their delicate plans? Don't make me laugh.

Fast forward to today, and I think a lot of people are feeling something similar to this. A simple way of putting it would be that the comportment of the Israeli government over the past (at least) 18 months has been so abysmal that it has made many of us considerably more tolerant of anti-Israel criticism than we might have been in years past. Even the criticisms we don't personally agree with, don't seem so far out-of-bounds -- they might not be what we believe, but they're not wildly out of range of what we believe.

But things run deeper than that. Part of what we're seeing is an exhaustion over being asked to go to the mat for an Israeli government that we know -- we know -- would never lift a finger for us in return. They view people like us with the utmost contempt, even as they scream at us to show good Jewish solidarity and back them to the hilt. The post-10/7 story has been Jewish liberals patiently extolling the need to understand military necessity and holding complexity and remembering the hostages, with the Israeli government responding by openly promising to starve out Gazans while selling out the hostages, all to keep the war going as long as possible in order to save Netanyahu's political skin and satisfy the far-right's expansionist agenda of ethnic cleansing. Virtually every narrative of justice that could have been mustered on Israel's behalf in the wake of 10/7 has, by Israel's own hand, been made out to be a cruel joke. Jay Michaelson got it exactly right: they've made us feel like freiers -- suckers, fools, saps.

At some point, one just doesn't want to do it anymore. What's the point? Again, it's not that we don't have reasonable concerns. But after the 50th iteration of having a reasonable concern about someone's 10/7 tweet transmogrified by right-wing extremists into "hell yeah, we should cut all of Columbia's funding and deport the students to South Sudan!", one eventually learns to keep quiet.

So that's what I think we're seeing. Partially, it's a greater tolerance for sharper criticisms of Israel than might have been accepted in year's past. But partially, it's just a decision to abstain -- to withdraw from the one-sided bargain where American Jews serve as Israel's defense attorney and Israel thanks us by spitting in our food and calling us suckers. Enough is enough.

Faithless in Gaza

The other day I was enmeshed in a Facebook thread, as one does, where a colleague was complaining about a post that equally condemned the Capital Jewish Museum shooting by a pro-Palestinian terrorist and the bombing of family homes by the IDF (the sin of "equating", not to be confused with the sin of "one-sided"). The argument was a familiar one: the DC shooter was intentionally seeking to murder civilians (true), while the killing of Palestinian families is an "undesired", tragic byproduct of fighting an urban counterinsurgency.

My response to this argument was not to contest it, exactly. It was to ask my colleague a more basic question: what would falsify his belief? He believes that, for Israel, the deaths of Palestinian civilians are undesired. What evidence would suffice so that he would no longer believe that?

He wouldn't answer.

To be sure, he gave an answer -- but it was just more arguments for why it was still correct to think that these deaths were "undesired". Pressed again to say, okay, but what evidence would make you think otherwise, and I was met with silence.*

That was when it was clear the issue wasn't one of belief, but of dogmatic faith. The bottom line -- "Israel does not desire civilian deaths" -- was written in stone. Everything above that could and would be erased and rewritten to cohere to the bottom line. The "what would falsify" question was impossible to answer, because he knew deep down that if he committed to any non-ludicrous answer, there was a real chance his criteria would be met, and then what would he do?

This does not work. I am familiar with the arguments why the spiraling death toll in Gaza does not mean that Israel "desires" those deaths. I don't find them especially compelling anymore,** but I'm familiar with them. But one argument that has no purchase is the pure tautology: "these civilian deaths are undesired because Israel does not desire civilian deaths". That boils down to rejecting the claim because accepting it would make you feel sad. It does not work.

Nir Hasson had a powerful column the other day about how much of the Israeli media has responded to the IDF killing nine Palestinian children. The media is obsessed with every fuzzy detail or misplaced accent, every AI-generated image or overwrought recharacterization -- but all in order to kick dust around the acknowledged truth that the IDF did kill those children. It is a mirror-image of 10/7-denialism, and, as one expert observes, it is in its perverted way a form of moral self-policing:

"Denying the atrocities that your side has committed is an attempt to maintain your humanity," [Dr. Assaf David, of the Forum for Regional Thinking and the Van Leer Institute] explains. "When you say, 'There are things that my side cannot do,' it is actually a statement saying that I cannot justify these things. It's true that it's a lie and that we do do these things, but denial is trying to set a moral standard."

Denial and justification go hand-in-hand. If it was unjustified then it didn't happen, and if it happened it was justified. Flit back and forth between those positions, and one can keep the faith indefinitely.

But it doesn't work. As one side of the fulcrum grows increasingly untenable, unbearable pressure grows on the other. Here is where one starts to see either absurd exercises in denialism (most 10/7 victims were gunned down by Israel; the images of Gaza destruction are "Pallywood" concoctions) or sickening excursions into justifications (the Bibas children would have grown up to be monsters anyway; Gaza's population are tantamount to Nazi collaborators). Such maneuvers are soul-destroying, but they are inevitable when one's dogmatic faith matters more than truth.

So to my pro-Israel friends, this is my challenge to you. If you still believe that Israel is only acting in the interests of self-defense, that its overall policy and practice is one that provides Palestinian civilians with the protections they are due under international law and as human beings, that the scenes of death and destruction are not "desired" but a regrettable byproduct of the inevitabilities of urban warfare against a terrorist entity like Hamas, I won't argue with you. I'll simply ask you to ask yourself, earnestly and without flinching, what would cause you to think otherwise. Commit to something, now, so that if the evidence does come to pass you don't rationalize it away later.

And if you can't bring yourself to do that simple thing, ask yourself what that really means about the status of your faith.

* The closest he did come to an answer was by citing to civilian:combatant casualty ratios which, he said, were lower in the Gaza campaign compared to other analogous counterinsurgencies (e.g., the anti-ISIS campaign in Mosul, which he said had a ratio of 2.5:1). The Gaza ratio, he said, was closer to 1.5:1 or 1.2:1; so if the Mosul campaign wasn't one of desired civilian death, neither was Gaza. But when I pressed him as to what ratio would flip that intuition (particularly given that the 10/7 ratio was slightly worse than 2:1), he refused to commit to a number -- I suspect because he was not as confident in that 1.2 - 1.5:1 ratio as he made himself out to be and knew that if he, say, matched the 10/7 2:1 figure, he might end up being put to the proof (for my part, I've seen the 1.2 and 1.5:1 ratios cited but I've also seen much worse estimates pegging the ratio at closer to 4:1). The cynic, I suggested, might suspect that the only number he'd commit to is .5 higher than whatever ends up being the real number.

** My view is that the prevailing outlook in both the IDF and the Israeli political establishment is, at best, utter indifference to Palestinian civilian life. To the extent Palestinians civilian safety poses any impediment to a military or political objective -- which always centered around "keeping Bibi in power", and which now includes "conquering" Gaza to boot -- that interest is given virtually zero weight. As the value of children's lives approaches zero, the number of children one can justify killing to get at one Hamas operative (or keep Bibi out of prison one more day) approaches infinity.

Among the bits of evidence that buttresses that view are the spiraling death tally itself (and the individual instances of horrifying death and destruction that are virtually impossible to justify), the regular statements by top-level Israeli officials evincing criminal intentions towards the Palestinian people, the credible reports that the IDF has greatly relaxed its operational controls previously meant to assure adherence to rules of distinction and proportionality in favor of establishing effective "free-fire" zones, and the prevalence of deeply racist attitudes towards Arabs and Palestinians that polling suggests are present in Israel's military-aged populations. 

There may be individual units or actors holding themselves to higher standards; there also are no doubt those holding themselves to a lower one where the death and destruction is itself a desired and terminal end. And none of this is incompatible with the belief that Hamas also is utterly indifferent to the wellbeing of the Palestinian population under its de facto rule, that it operates in civilian areas in a manner designed to further imperil the non-combatant population, and is effectively holding Gaza's population hostage in service of a crude desire to retain power. But in any case, it is wrong to say the deaths Israel inflicts on innocent Palestinians are "undesired", as that implies some level of care and concern for which there is little evidence of.

What Internet Randos Are Saying About the DC Jewish Museum Shooting

Earlier this evening, two staffers with the Israeli embassy were shot and killed while leaving an event at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, DC. The event was a multifaith and multinational gathering exploring "how a coalition of organizations - from the region and for the region - are working together in response to humanitarian crises throughout the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region." The attacker reportedly shouted "free Palestine" after committing the killings.

(Tomorrow, the Museum was scheduled to host an event on "Pride: The Policy Accomplishments of the LGBTQ+ Movement", but this doesn't seem related to that).

Whenever events like this happen to the Jewish community, I have the macabre habit of trawling through the comment sections of my favored social media outlets, looking for people to block. I say macabre, but I actually find it quite cathartic: every block is another terrible person I don't ever have to deal with. Is it an endless and Sisyphean task? Of course. But you know that story about the kid throwing starfish back into the ocean and being told "why bother -- there's so many, you'll never make a difference throwing them back one by one", and he throws another one back in and says "I made a difference to that one?" It's like that, but oppositional.

I digress. After hearing the news, I did my perusing on Bluesky, and I have some anecdata to report.

First, a positive: Most people are reacting with what I would consider basic normalcy and decency. Just generally expressing horror and sadness or worry about how actings of political violence are only going to make a bad situation worse. Sometimes people I think exaggerate the pervasiveness of the "bad" takes on Bluesky -- and at one level I get why: if 1000 people are commenting on a political event, and 10% have a repellant take, that's simultaneously only 10% (a pretty small minority) and also that's 100 repellant comments, which can feel very overwhelming, very quickly. So while I don't begrudge anyone who can't look past the bad actors, I want to put it in some perspective. To everyone who had a normal response to a terrible tragedy: you get a sticker.

On the "bad" side, I sort the bad actors into a few groups. The number of people I saw affirmatively cheering the murders was very small. More common was either an overacted performance of yawning indifference ("huh -- anyway, did you see the Pacers game?"), or a dashed off "I'm not saying I support this..." followed by a very long "but...."

To be honest, though, none of these surprised me (either in their content or their relative numbers). The response I saw which did surprise me in terms of the frequency I encountered it was the number of people suggesting the shooting may have been a false flag, designed to justify either complete ethnic cleansing in Gaza and/or further authoritarian repression here at home. 

To be clear: I'm not including in this group people suggesting the Trump and Netanyahu administrations will attempt to exploit this shooting to further their malign agenda. That goes without saying. I'm talking about people who think the shooter was himself an Israeli operative, or otherwise acted at the behest of the Israeli government.

This is "the paranoid style", leftist version, and I was stunned at how many people seemed ready to indulge in it.  I probably shouldn't have been -- one still sees people arguing that Israel intentionally let October 7 happen (and massacred its own people) in order to justify its invasion of Gaza -- but still, it stood out. A lot of people really are prone to believing these sorts of conspiracies.

Anyway, that's my impressionistic take on what random reply-guys are saying. Mostly normal, some cheerers or apologists, and a bit more conspiracy theorists than I was comfortable seeing. Your mileage may vary.

UPDATE: One other thing I noticed -- the replies are much worse in the replies to politicians' posts (compared to news stories). Chris Van Hollen's skeet is overrun with people screaming "but you don't have a word to say about Gaza, you AIPAC-bought bastard!", which suggests they're either bots or aren't paying attention.

The Debunkers

Once, when I was in middle school, a friend and I saw a picture of a border guard from some eastern European country inside a Scholastic Magazine and decided it was a fake.

We had a grand time picking out details in the photo that "proved" it wasn't real. The guard's uniform had English on it, not Cyrillic. The rifle he was carrying was wrong (how we know what rifle he was supposed to be carrying, I don't know). There were other "problems" as well that I can't remember now. But I do remember feeling very proud of ourselves for figuring out that the magazine ran a fake photo; when the reality is that the photo was almost certainly real. We were vastly overreading minor "discrepancies" that probably weren't ultimately discrepancies at all.

The New York Times has a really interesting (and long) profile on a TikTok star who announced she had cancer, and then faced an organized community committed to "proving" that she was lying about it for influence, clout, or clicks.

The story doesn't hide the ball for long: unless her oncologist is in on the grift, the woman really has cancer. Nonetheless, it was fascinating to see how many people got so committed, for so long, into being sure she was faking it.

In particular, I noticed the deployment of a sort of Potemkin expertise. The debunkers seized on little details and discrepancies which they persistently viewed as the critical cracks in an otherwise elaborate facade. The tenor was an interesting mix of obviousness ("anyone could spot this is a fake, look at the rubes falling for such a clear con") and sophistication ("look how meticulous my investigation is; the story falls apart when an expert looks at it"). The latter component I think does more work than the former: it concocts an aura of authority that both reassures other readers that the claims are backed up by evidence, and also makes them feel good about being critical consumers not taken in by ruses and cons (when the irony, of course, is that they've talked themselves into not believing the truth).

When I read this story, it reminded me of a similar army of "debunkers" who pore over any claim of atrocity or calamity in Israel/Palestine to "prove" that a claim forwarded by seemingly credible sources (doctors, international media outlets, and so on) is actually a hoax or a lie. For example, this account is dedicated to minute analysis of videos or pictures that purport to show, say, famine in Gaza or bombed out civilian infrastructure, picking out bits and pieces that "prove" it's being staged. There's a whole ecosystem of people on this beat (and not just on the "pro-Israel" side), and their tenor and behavior is very reminiscent of the fanatical debunkers described in the NYT article above. They project expertise via hyper-fixation on detail, and present themselves as simply trying to uncover the truth. But they're obviously not dispassionate; the tiny nits and picks they make to "debunk" adverse narratives are never paired with a similar fine-toothed comb aimed at stories more to their taste. It's not even real skepticism, let alone critical analysis. Yet they have an eager audience from those eager to believe they're seeing through a ruse, who revel in the twin joys of faux-sophistication and confirmation bias.

Now, to be sure, the TikTok case is in many ways simpler: it doesn't have any clear political valence, and it is a single incident capable of being definitively declared true or false. Across the many, many reported incidents of catastrophe and calamity in Israel and Palestine, things tend to be muddier, with more obvious incentives to slant (or invent) claims for political purposes, and there will be inevitably a distribution of results following initial claims. Some will be borne out, some will turn out to be overstated, not what they are initially claimed to be, or even outright falsified. There is value in actual critical assessment and reassessment of what people say is happening inside a war zone -- not the least because even among perfectly good faith actors the chaos of a war zone doesn't lend itself to the conjunction of perfect accuracy and immediate reporting.

Nonetheless, I can't help but think part (though not all) of the deception relies on a persistent assumption that every social calamity is complete and totalizing, such that if there's anything interrupting the grimness then it just cannot be cancer/fascism/famine whatever.

And that's not true. There are times one is living with cancer and yet isn't an emaciated patient confined to her bed. That can be part of cancer, one of the scariest parts of cancer, but a picture that doesn't fit that template doesn't prove the cancer is made up. There are times one is living in a fascist state but does not see jackbooted thugs grabbing people off the streets. That is one of the scariest parts of fascism, but a day one just goes to the market as normal and doesn't see any secret police at all doesn't necessarily falsify the fascism. Cancer isn't always like that, fascism isn't always like that. And famine, too, doesn't always look like "The Vulture and the Little Girl"; a picture of a market with some food in it does not necessarily mean there isn't a famine.

That's why those little bits and pieces aren't the smoking guns they purport to be. Reality isn't as clean as we think it is. People with cancer still go to parks. People under fascism still enjoy nights out on the town. Places afflicting by famine still typically have some food somewhere. Buildings that have been bombed still have unexpected pieces that remain standing.

Each of those faux-"discrepancies" becomes grist for the debunking mill. But it's not real critical analysis; it's just food to keep believing what one already wants to believe.

Like Wildfire

The first I heard of wildfires in Israel, it was in the context of an allegation that the fires were the result of Israeli settlers committing arson while attacking Palestinian farmers.

As best I can tell, that allegation traces back to a stray Haaretz tweet that reads "As wildfire rages in Israel, security source tells Haaretz settlers set Palestinian agricultural land on fire in the West Bank." There doesn't seem to be any further corroboration, and the link in the post doesn't go to any article or news item elaborating (as best I can tell, it was either taken down or never existed in the first place).

Meanwhile, the right-wing coalition running the show in Israel was also quick to blame the fires on arson -- specifically, that caused by Palestinian militants. This, too, seems thinly supported and already has the hallmarks of a smear campaign. Netanyahu, for instance, claimed that 18 individuals had already been arrested for suspected arson; the true figure is three. And one of those three is a sixty-three-year old man with no criminal record who was found with the smoking-gun evidence of a tobacco pipe and some cotton to clean it.

Finally, there are the experts, who posit that the wildfires raging across an arid region of the eastern mediterranean that just had its driest winter on record are probably attributable to ... the climate crisis. Fancy that.

In recent years, right-wing politicians have frequently blamed Palestinians for arson in the wake of wildfire outbreaks, but no one has ever been indicted for nationalist-motivated arson leading to large-scale fires. Most major fires investigated were ultimately attributed to negligence.

The Carmel disaster in 2010 was sparked by a discarded hookah coal. Two of the major fires that scorched parts of the Jerusalem hills in 2016 were caused by a flare gun and welding work. Other large fires were found to have been started by farmers burning waste or hikers making coffee.

The phenomenon of blaming minorities for starting wildfires is not unique to Israel: in Turkey, Erdoğan blamed the Kurds; in Europe, migrants were accused of arson; and in California, claims emerged that LGBTQ individuals in the fire services were responsible for the failure to contain the fires.

It does all hang together, doesn't it. 

Thrilling Over Dead Children

In a generally interesting column about Israel's war aims in Gaza, Raviv Drucker writes:

Today, the lust for revenge, an easy willingness to make use of the madman theory and the widespread view that "they're all terrorists" have led to many actions that cannot be explained or justified. It is immoral, inhumane and taints us all.

This jumped out at me, because of a response to my "Tenth Plague" post I had read a few hours earlier. The response took great delight in trying to come up with myriad thought experiments justifying the killing of children: Would you kill baby Hitler? Would you kill members of the Hitler Youth? Would you kill a neo-Nazi kid who would have voted for Trump? (The last was presented as some sort of gotcha, as if it presented some more difficult quandary than the others).

These meditations, of course, are fun little games one plays in order to rationalize killing children -- a still grimmer (if that's possible) example of refusing to lay down one's toys. They are misappropriations of the famous quip about knowing what one is and just haggling over the price -- the idea being that we're all actually okay with killing children, some are just more clear-eyed about it than others.

The uselessness of the "baby Hitler" hypothetical is obviously that we cannot know in advance who will turn out to be Hitler. The purported way around that is pure racist fatalism -- we do know that these children will grow up to be Hitler, because that is what they do. It is not irony at all that this is exactly the rationale of those who cheered the murder of the Bibas children -- claiming that they will grow up to massacre Palestinians because that is what they do. It's the same sickness, in a slightly different color palette. Let nobody deceive you into thinking that these people are not one and the same.

And what stands out at me, again, about people such as this is the desire -- the thrill -- that some have in finding a way to justify killing children. It reminds me once again of Bernard Henri-Levy's contention about the rise of the "New Antisemitism", speaking of people who want above all else to "feel once again the desire and, above all, the right to burn all the synagogues they want, to attack boys wearing yarmulkes, to harass large numbers of rabbis, to kill not just one but many Ilan Halimis...." It's not just about attacking kids, it's about feeling right to do it. And so they are never more thrilled than when they can tell themselves a story whereby the killing is righteous, and justified, and necessary, and beautiful.

A key part of the story they tell themselves, I think, is that everyone thinks this way. Everyone revels in killing the children of the enemy, some just put on a show of pretending otherwise. It is cynicism posing a "realism" that's actually cowardice. It continues to be a lie, and lie whose only purpose is to give despicable people moral license to promote despicable things.

The Tenth Plague in 2025

My least favorite part of the Passover Seder, by far, is the recitation of the Ten Plagues. It is tradition to spill a drop of wine for each plague, to acknowledge the suffering of the Egyptians and how it lessens our own joy at liberation.

For nine of the ten plagues, I'd consider this sufficient. For the Tenth Plague -- death of the first born -- I never have. A single drop of wine as a response to dead children is woefully, horrifyingly grotesque; even when those deaths are in pursuit of the most noble cause of liberation from slavery (though I continue to assert that, as told in the Passover tale, the Tenth Plague was absolutely unnecessary -- it was the Lord who "hardened Pharoah's heart" and precluded an earlier resolution). 

Again, this is something I've believed for many, many years (the above-linked post is from 2007). But it is all the more resonant right now. When one thinks of the Israeli children butchered on October 7, or those murdered in Hamas captivity, or the Palestinian children torn asunder by bombs, or dying in want of adequate nutrition or medical care -- what kind of holiday treats such horrors as a literal drop in the bucket? How can we think that way?

Here, too, the lesson is that such atrocities must not be downplayed, in particular downplayed on the grounds that some overarching "cause" behind them is just; here, too, the lesson also is that what is presented as "necessary" rarely actually is.

Next year without murdered children.

The Global Right Ascendance Will Leave Israel in the Wreckage

Many people have taken note of recent poll data regarding American attitudes towards Israel, which are (to summarize) cratering. Among Democrats, 69% now view Israel unfavorably. This doesn't surprise me, as Israel has done everything it possibly can to spit in the eye of Democrats and liberals (and yet somehow seems ever-so wounded that it's resulted in declining support). To paraphrase Chidi from The Good Place: In order to be a liberal, you have to do liberal things!

But what really should get people's eyebrows up are the numbers amongst young Republicans, where a majority (50%) also view Israel unfavorably (this is in contrast to older Republicans, who overwhelmingly like Israel; amongst Democrats there is a little generational gap). The MAGA Young Turks have no reservoir of good will towards Israel. They may sometimes find it a useful rhetorical trope to instantiate other goals (like xenophobic nativism), but it's a purely instrumental play. Ultimately, the rising tide of antisemitism amongst young Republicans is going to swamp whatever residual utility Israel has in the toolkit of right-wing domestic authoritarianism.

Indeed, reading this poll data reminded me of Robert Kagan's article a few years ago about Israel's future in an illiberal world -- namely, that Israel is delusional if it thinks that, in a world governed by reactionary nationalism combined with short-sighted faux-realpolitik, it will retain any sort of "special relationship" with its erstwhile patrons. Negative polarization alone will accelerate already deteriorating relationship Israel has with other western powers as Israel becomes associated with the new illiberal bloc; but if you look at the prime players in said bloc (Russia, China), Israel's never had an especially warm relationship with them either. Add that to the waxing influence amongst young MAGA sorts of figures like Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens, and why would Israel expect to remain anyone's favorite? Why wouldn't the right jettison Israel the moment it becomes an inconvenience to dealmaking with nations possessing more people, more territory, more wealth, and more oil?

We're already seeing inklings of this in how Israel has been treated in the tariff, er, "negotiations." First, they were slapped with higher tariffs than Iran. Israel tried to preempt that move by dropping its tariff rate for the United States to zero, but it didn't work even after an embarrassing bit of personal supplication from Bibi. Turns out Israel isn't Trump's special favorite; the best it can hope for is to be relegated to a pure client-state, begging for scraps (even antisemites, after all, sometimes are willing to tolerate Jews when they sit in states of permanent abasement).

This is all, of course, leopards-eating-faces on a geopolitical scale. But Israeli conservatives are, I think, in complete denial as to what's happening here. There may or may not be an ascendance of illiberal conservatism over the next few decades. But I predict that, of all the countries that might identify with and try to hop aboard that bandwagon, Israel is the most likely to be left behind in the wreckage.

How To Support Anti-Hamas Protests in Gaza

You may have seen that protests have broken out in the Gaza Strip targeting Hamas.

This is a great thing, and the bravery of these protesters deserves nothing but applause. They should be viewed as of a piece with other brave protesters standing up to authoritarian practices in places like Turkey, Israel, and (for that matter) the United States.

But I've noticed some pro-Israel commenters highlighting these protests with a weird tone of empty triumphalism. They're excited about the protests because they're anti-Hamas (makes sense), but beyond expressing that giddiness there's just ... nothing else there in terms of what they, or we, or anyone outside of Gaza might do to back the protesters up.

Nothing on how we might actually support these protests (hint: I suspect they will not find dropping bombs on their heads helpful). And nothing on what, tangibly, we think these protesters should get as an alternative to Hamas rule (again, I doubt they're excited at the process of being evicted to make room for a MAGA seaside resort development).

But if you're going to claim the mantle of supporting these protests, those are the sorts of questions you need to have answers for. You don't get to say "gee, these protests are swell -- anyway, back to bombing!"  (I suppose there is a very slim chance the protesters want the war to continue as a means of ousting Hamas, but anyone making that claim on the protesters' behalf, absent them saying so themselves, bears a very high burden of persuasion). 

And you also don't get to just be coy about the end status of Gaza. I don't have a direct line to the protesters' ears, but I assume they want some form of genuine self-governance and independence. If one isn't willing to accede to that, you also don't get to claim the protests for your own purposes.

Again, the complete inability of Israel to articulate a plausible "day after" upon toppling Hamas is one reason this war is dragging on without end. As long as the war continues, Gaza is Schrodinger's territory -- neither reoccupied and annexed nor granted freedom and independence. Israel doesn't want to commit to either option, so it delays and delays and delays by extending and extending and extending the war.

The Israeli Government's Rapidly Imploding Antisemitism Conference

The JTA headline says it all: "After welcoming far-right politicians, Israel’s antisemitism conference is hemorrhaging speakers."

The Israeli government, spearheaded by Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli, decided to use this conference as a high profile inauguration of Israel reversing its longstanding boycott of far-right political parties in Europe. Title notwithstanding, Chikli has always evinced pure contempt for diaspora Jews, so it is unsurprising that he'd raise this particular middle finger to Jewish safety around the world.

I first learned about folks pulling out of the conference from David Hirsh's announcement that he was doing so. Hirsh is one of the world's leading scholars on Contemporary Left Antisemitism and an incisive critic of the global BDS movement, so his departure is no small thing. He has been joined by figures including German antisemitism czar Felix Klein, French Jewish philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy, and British Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis.

As of right now, ADL chieftain Jonathan Greenblatt is still on the speakers list, which certainly checks out (the decision to platform the European far-right was harshly criticized by Greenblatt's predecessor, Abe Foxman).

I consider the decision by Hirsh and his colleagues to be a brave and inspired one. The only thing I'll add is that I know Hirsh does not consider this to be an example of "boycotting Israel" and it does a disservice to his record and his choices to present it as such (whether as praise or condemnation). Much like with Natalie Portman, we should respect Hirsh's own understanding of what he's doing -- and what he's doing is not claiming that the mere presence of Israelis or an Israeli connection makes a conference tainted beyond salvation, but rather saying that the particular choices of this particular conference and its particular roster of speakers mean he cannot take the stage. Of course, it's possible to make "particular" choices that are so expansive in who they lock out that they are tantamount to a nationality-based sweep. But that's not what's happening here. 

There is no reason for diaspora Jews to endorse the Israeli government's clear decision that it cares more about allying with Europe's far-right than actually standing with the world's Jewish community, and as immiserating as that choice by Israel is for someone like me, I'm glad people like Hirsh are recognizing it for what it is and are responding accordingly.

UPDATE: Greenblatt has backed out too. Good on him.

Betar Expulsion as Trump Impeachment

The other day, I wrote about the new(-ish) far-right organization operating in Jewish spaces, Betar. Betar has distinguished itself for its open endorsement of hate and violence directed both at Palestinians (its response to reports of Israel killing children in Gaza was to say "Not enough. We demand blood in Gaza!") as well as Jews it views as insufficiently fundamentalist in our Zionism, which in their case means virtually all of us.

Since them, they've gotten into a spat with the ADL after the latter added them to its database of extremism. And then a competing slate in the World Zionist Congress elections, Kol Israel, moved to have Betar expelled from the American Zionist Movement, citing both electoral blackmail tactics and Betar's "abhorrent" calls "for genocide and the murder of Palestinian babies." Betar, through its coalition partner ZOA (there's a team-up everyone could see coming), has warned of filing retaliatory complaints against Kol Israel.

On the one hand, it's always good to see groups stand up to racist thugs like Betar. On the other hand, this feels eerily reminiscent of how the political establishment treated the rise of Donald Trump. 

After years of ignoring, excusing, coddling, and enabling him, January 6 happened and for an instant it seemed like folks woke up and sanity might be restored. But the reality was it was already too late -- the supposedly unthinkable extremism that Donald Trump represented had become normalized through those years of excuse and neglect. Even in the most incredible moment -- the immediate wake of an outright insurrection against the United States -- the effort to rein him in fizzled out, and he would soon reestablish himself as at the center of a conservative movement that at one point would have viewed as the most outrageous slander the charge that it would harbor the likes of Donald Trump. They failed to stop him when they could, and found themselves isolated and alone when they (briefly) roused themselves to try.

That pattern seems apt here. Efforts to kick out ZOA from the Conference went nowhere. A similar initiative at the Boston JCRC, one where it was admitted ZOA "elevated White supremacism", only ended up yielding the eventual departure of the left-wing group the Workers Circle (that group also left the Conference). In Isarel, years of enabling and nurturing the neo-Kahanists have made them into the dominant force in Bibi's coalition -- a cadre that is not just ("just") contained to secondary parties like Jewish Power but is running riot through Likud itself. In the diaspora, too, Kahanism is being ever-more normalized as something other than a violent mob of racist thugs. Everyone who thought this was just posturing, or political jockeying, or unsavory alliance-making, but who was sure that if and when the time came they could pump the brakes has been proven to be a fool. There are no brakes. As wrote in my first post on Betar:

[L]eaders of social groups that simultaneously play footsie with the sort of extreme rhetoric while assuaging themselves that of course their actual politics are humanitarian and egalitarian, they're just revving up a crowd or exaggerating for effect, will quickly learn that much of their base isn't in on the bit. They're in it for the hate, and when someone offers that hate better, they won't listen to your attempts to rein things back in.

So as happy as I am to see groups try to stand up to Betar and ZOA, I am dubious about their likelihood of success. The most likely outcome for Betar and ZOA is exactly what they've enjoyed for years by the mainstream Jewish institutions: averting their eyes, kicking the can down the road, hoping the problem solves itself -- and with each passing moment, what once was unthinkable becomes undislodgeable.

Maybe eventually, someone will learn a lesson. But I doubt it will be this day.

People Hate Mourning Jews

It is hard for me to see a picture of Kfir Bibas and not see my baby.

The news that Kfir Bibas and his family were murdered by Hamas is, of course, wrenching. And for me, at least, it intersected with two of my greatest fears. Of course, there is the fear of harm befalling my son or another a loved one. But there is also the more specific worry, which I've discussed before, of having a loved one die "politically" -- that is, in a context where their death inevitably becomes part of a broader political dispute. It is both unavoidable and unspeakably cruel that Kfir Bibas' death are part of politics now -- the politics of Hamas' depravity, the politics of the horrors of the Israel/Gaza War, the politics of the future of Israel and Palestine where, God willing, nobody will have to experience what the Bibas family has endured.

And it is not just the Bibas family, but the entire Jewish world, who is mourning Kfir's death. And, because we are Jews, that means that some people -- sometimes other Jews -- will tell us we are mourning Kfir wrong.

One way we might be "wrong" is if we have the temerity to focus, for even a short spell, just on the Bibas family. Don't we know others have suffered too? Are you saying that Jewish lives matter more? How tribal, how cloistered, how gauche, to not use this moment to make a statement about the universal value of all human life.

But another way we might be "wrong" is if we do mourn Kfir Bibas by reference to the universal value of all human life -- and in particular, of both Israeli and Palestinian life.

The New Jewish Narrative's statement mourning the deaths of Oded Lifschitz and Ariel, Kfir, and Shiri Bibas spoke in this register. It described the Bibas family as "distinct symbols of the human cost of this conflict," and averred that their "tragic deaths are a painful reminder of the unspeakable loss that this war has wrought." They juxtaposed Ariel and Kfir alongside Hind Rajab and infants in Al-Nasr Hospital. They concluded by renewing their commitment to "a future where children on both sides of the fence grow up safe, free from the horrors of war."

I am not the Bibas family, and I do not purport to speak for them. I can only speak for my own grief, and for me this was a message that spoke to my grief. But I've seen other Jews who were aghast by this statement, who were furious that NJN would use such universalist tones rather than concentrate solely and exclusively on the Bibas children.

Their complaint styles itself as one objecting to "All Lives Mattering", but notice that this isn't quite right. The NJN did not, anywhere in its statement, reproach those who decided this week to speak specifically and distinctively about the Bibases. They did not say that there was something improper or tribal or provincial about having that focus, or that Jews have some unique obligation to transcend their Jewishness and speak solely in universalist tones. They just chose, as an expression of their own Jewish voice, that they would make this universal connection. For them, the way to mourn Jewishly is to draw out this more expansive desire that Jewish children and Palestinian children be free from the horrors of war. If that is "All Lives Mattering", then any project of political solidarity and fellowship is, and I can hardly imagine a more short-sighted and self-destructive commitment than that.

When choosing that framing is presented not as a choice at all but as an implacable obligation, there is a problem. But when choosing that framing is presented as an impermissible option that betrays Jewish peoplehood, there is a problem as well. That Jews (or anyone else) are not obligated to always frame their suffering in universal tones does not mean that Jews should be forbidden from electing, of our own volition, to draw out those connections. The latter move is just as stifling as the former.

When I see a picture of Kfir Bibas, I see my baby, whom I love and cherish and would be shattered if he came into any danger or peril. And I know that every baby has parents who feel the exact same way, who would be shattered in the same way -- and how could I wish such a horrible fate upon any parent? When I imagine how horrible it would be for me, I imagine how horrible it would be for them, and my instinct is to think on ways to avert the horrors for us. If, God forbid, something did happen to my family, I hope nobody would begrudge me for concentrating specifically on my family. But I also hope that if I chose to rededicate myself to trying to prevent similar tragedies from befalling other families and other communities not mine, that that choice would not be begrudged either.

They're The Same Picture

The JTA has an interesting profile on a "new" right-wing Zionist organization, Betar ("new" in quotes because it claims to be a resurrection of a much older Zionist outfit active before Israel's founding). Betar has distinguished itself by its "confrontational" approach -- meaning that it engages in acts of vandalism and violence, and openly calls for things like ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and the expansion of Israel's borders well beyond the West Bank and Gaza and into modern Jordan, Egypt, and Syria.

Critical readers will spot a lot of commonalties between Betar and the more hardline elements of the pro-Palestinian movement. Most obviously, Betar uses almost identical rhetorical maximalism -- compare "We don't want two states, we want all of it" heard at pro-Palestinian protests with Betar's recent statement "We don’t want peace. We don’t want co-existence" -- and simply asks listeners to "choose a side". Pick your preferred ethnic cleanser and cleansee.

But there are some other commonalities. Perhaps the most important one to flag is that Betar hates "moderate" Jews as much if not more than it hates Palestinians, and its definition of "moderate" includes many Jews whom external observers would view as hardliners. Consider Betar's confrontational relationship with Columbia professor Shai Davidai, who has organized aggressive (to say the least) counterprotests aimed at pro-Palestinian activism on campus and had to deal with a Betar element crashing his event:

Despite their tiny size, the Betar contingent immediately worried Davidai. Most of them were young men, he recalled; several covered their faces; one had a flag of the Jewish Defense League, an extremist group that the United States has designated as a terrorist organization. “All they did was scream ‘F— Gaza,’ ‘Gaza is ours,’ ‘Here’s a beeper for you,’ ‘Deport them all,’ ‘ICE, ICE, ICE,’” he said. “Just violent rhetoric.”

Davidai is no stranger to provocation: Last fall, Columbia barred him from campus after months of his vocal criticisms of the university’s handling of antisemitism. Yet he views Betar as a serious obstacle to the movement he was trying to build, not least because they were adapting the same tactics as the pro-Palestinian side: expressing support for a terror group and hiding their faces as they did so.

“I think it’s hypocritical to spend 16 months blaming all protesters who are in this Free Palestine movement for not policing their own protesters, but then let hatred and violence take root in yours,” Davidai said. “I said, ‘Look, you’re doing exactly what we’re telling them not to do….’  At some point I asked them, ‘Go do your thing, but don’t be associated with us.’ They refused.”

After the rally, Betar and its followers began targeting him online. On Instagram he blasted them for only joining counter-protests, while never showing up to rallies for Israeli hostages. The rhetoric has only escalated from there, as Betar has mobilized its followers against him, in public and private. “You will be disrupted at all future speeches,” Torossian messaged Davidai on WhatsApp, according to communications shared with JTA. “You are a radical.”

Davidai has also urged his followers against supporting any further killings or mass expulsions in Gaza, a stark contrast to Betar’s own stated views. Yet in the comments, many of Davidai’s own followers have begun taking Betar’s side, accusing him of naively trying to make peace with the enemy.

There are some lessons to be learned here. One lesson is that there will always be someone more aggressive, confrontational, and hardline than you, and those actors will prove almost impossible to police. Moreover, they (in many ways correctly) view more "moderate" elements of their own community as their most important and salient competition and will ruthlessly try to attack and suppress those they deem "traitors" or "appeasers" in order to accumulate more power to themselves as the "authentic" voice of "true resistance" (this certainly characterizes how the BDS movement has been going after Standing Together, for instance). And finally, leaders of social groups that simultaneously play footsie with the sort of extreme rhetoric while assuaging themselves that of course their actual politics are humanitarian and egalitarian, they're just revving up a crowd or exaggerating for effect, will quickly learn that much of their base isn't in on the bit. They're in it for the hate, and when someone offers that hate better, they won't listen to your attempts to rein things back in.

There's also a very important lesson not to learn here. For some people, it is important to hear about groups like Betar so to disabuse any notions that calls for ethnic cleansing and political violence are only something "they" (the other side) does, whereas "our" movement is purely one of peace and coexistence. That illusion is dangerous and must be dispelled. But for others, the main function of groups like Betar is to give people a permission structure for their own counter-maximalism, because "this is what they're really like". If they're out there saying "Gaza is ours", what choice do we have but to fling them into the sea? If they're out there saying "Israel must be rooted out and destroyed", what choice do we have but to "transfer" them out of Gaza? There are a lot of people who just love the Betars or the Within Our Lifetimes of the world, and are constantly searching for examples of the genre. It's not because they agree with them. It's because their existence gives license to be as extreme and uncompromising and hateful as you want, because have you seen what they want?

The only way out of that trap is to recognize that it's the same picture. These organizations may have different preferred winners and losers, but they're fundamentally on the same side -- trying to convince you that the only choice there is to make is choosing your preferred extremism. And that is a false choice. As important as it is to name and shame these sorts of extremists, if you're main motivation in doing so is to validate your preconceived notion that this sort of extremism is the actual true authentic core of an entire people or culture, then you are not shaming anyone -- you are joining them.

The true enemy, as always, is anyone who rejects the equal dignity and democratic equality of Israelis and Palestinians alike. Anyone who rejects that there are two authentic nations whose homeland is in this territory. Anyone who rejects that there are two communities have legitimate claims to democratic self-determination. Anyone who rejects those premises is fundamentally on the same side, and the wrong side, no matter what flag they fly.