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This is a guest essay written by Pat Johnson of Pat’s Substack.
You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and Spotify.
Among well-intentioned people who oppose antisemitism, there is an unfortunate inclination to extrapolate the dangers of Jew-hatred, to imply that the only (or main) reason to oppose antisemitism is because it might eventually harm non-Jews.
This is most evident in two of the most common narratives invoked to oppose antisemitism — German reverend Martin Niemöller’s poem and the “canary in a coalmine” motif.
The “canary in the coalmine” treatment implies that antipathy toward Jews is often the first sign of a society going off the rails. Of course, that’s absolutely true. Even so, it implies that opposing antisemitism for its own sake is less imperative than opposing it because, to do otherwise, could harm everyone.
This is far more evident in the Niemöller poem. You know the one: First they came for the socialists, the trade unionists, etc. “Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out — because I was not a Jew. / Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me.”
This “poem” really grates me for so many reasons, not least the assertion that there was “no one left to speak for me.” The implication that everyone — literally everyone — was imprisoned (or killed or whatever) distracts from the reality that, no, it was always a very limited targeted population. The implication that, if you don’t speak out for minorities, they will eventually “come for” the majority is almost never true.
How about defending minorities for their own sake?
You get my point.
And yet, the predominant argument for opposing antisemitism, to this day, is that if you don’t stand up for the Jewish People, “they” will eventually come for someone you actually give a damn about.
Put mildly, this is hardly a ringing endorsement for standing by your principles. Sadly most people do not seem motivated to take a stand against antisemitism. So maybe self-interest is the best motivator.
But that’s actually not the point of this essay.
Literally billions of words have been spilled on the parallels between antisemitism and so-called “anti-Zionism.” And yet, weirdly, I have never heard anyone make the parallel “canary in the coalmine” case about “anti-Zionism.” While the impacts of antisemitism on non-Jews is hard to quantify, the impacts of “anti-Zionism” on non-Israelis is more tangible — and has horrific implications for people all over the planet.
Since nothing seems to stanch the global tsunami of irrational Israel-hatred these days, maybe we should actually take a page out of the self-interest manual and apply that to the fight against “anti-Zionism.”
First and foremost: Consider the Palestinians.
Were it not for the almost-chromosomal opposition among most Arab and Muslim societies to oppose the very concept of Jewish national self-determination, there would be two states, probably living in peaceful coexistence, one named Israel and the other Palestine.
In other words, Zionism is not the reason that “Palestine” isn’t “free.”
“Anti-Zionism” is.
Even barring that idealistic outcome, were it not for the “anti-Zionist” mania of isolating Israel in its geographical neighborhood — called “denormalization” — the Palestinians would no doubt have benefited over the past 76 years from proximity to the most innovative, successful, forward-looking economic powerhouse in the region.
Critics love to point out examples of Israeli wealth juxtaposed with Palestinian poverty. In doing so, they inevitably misplace blame directly. It is not Zionism that is to blame for this economic disparity. It is “anti-Zionism.”
Had the entire Arab world (until the Abraham Accords) and effectively the entire Muslim world not quarantined Israel from interacting with its neighbors, the entire region would be more economically and socially advanced. This is more true for Palestinians than any other group.
So “anti-Zionism” harms Palestinians and the broader region — but “anti-Zionism” also hurts people all over the world. The mindless obsession with Israel eclipses every other natural and human-made catastrophe on the planet. The United Nations has been appropriated and delegitimized by “anti-Zionism,” wasting vast time and billions of dollars exacerbating, rather than resolving, the Palestinian problem.
Western-world trade unions, liberal churches, campus protesters, street activists, commentators and all other bien pensants of the developed world rail against Israel.
Meanwhile, Muslim Uighurs in China are rounded up and put in concentration camps for “re-education.” In Sudan, ethnic conflict has displaced more than 3 million people. Over 70 percent of the people in South Sudan are experiencing humanitarian crises. Conflicts and climate change exacerbate deadly crises in Ethiopia.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, more than 25 million people need humanitarian assistance. In Somalia, about 7 million people need humanitarian assistance, of whom more than 4 million people face food insecurity crises. More than 18 million people in Myanmar are being confronted by humanitarian disaster, with 2 million internally displaced.
Then there is gobsmacking gender inequality almost everywhere in the world, as well as female genital mutilation and too many degradations of women to enumerate. There are forced child marriages, sickening child labor, and child combatants forced into wars.
Millions of refugees live without the vast array of privileges Palestinian refugees uniquely enjoy. Almost anywhere one looks in the world, there is food insecurity, intolerable levels of maternal mortality, drought, disease, and famine.
There are 50 million literally enslaved people in the world today. Did you even know that?
The list goes on and on. Yet all you ever hear about on social media, TV news, the front pages of daily newspapers, campus protests, and graffiti everywhere you turn in Western cities is: “Palestine! Palestine! Palestine!”
The problem in creating lists like these is that one never knows when to stop or how to prioritize the crises. This may be part of the reason for the irrational focus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We literally cannot wrap our heads around the panoply of disasters, so we focus on just one.
The one with the Jews.
The obsession with Israel and the Palestinians does not only eclipse other crises. It also actively and aggressively co-opts and misappropriates them. Water crisis in Flint, Michigan? Nope, let’s talk about water in “Palestine” instead!
Reconciliation with Indigenous peoples in Canada? Nope, let’s use that as a jumping-off point to refocus attention on (not actually) indigenous people in “Palestine.”
Refugee crisis at the United States border with Mexico? Forget that, there are Palestinian “refugees” to overshadow those people.
Police shootings of Blacks? No thanks, let’s talk instead about misuse of authority by Israeli soldiers and cops! In fact, let’s take it a step further and actually blame Israel for police shootings in the United States (a real phenomenon known as the “Deadly Exchange” trope).
While anti-Israel activists rant about made-up “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing,” actual genocides and ethnic cleansings go ignored. The myopic obsession with Israel by “anti-Zionists” has allowed the world to ignore, almost entirely, every other conflict and catastrophe on the planet.
Imagine how different the world might be if the unbelievable amount of person-hours and resources devoted to hating Israel were devoted to fighting climate change or something positive.
The worst fact in all of this is that, for all the global screeching and hysteria against Israel, all of this activism does precisely nothing to advance the cause they claim to be promoting. It does not advance peace or Palestinian self-determination. That will come only through the Palestinian willingness to coexist next door to — rather than instead of — the Jewish state.
Everything that overseas activists do to polarize people into an intolerant anti-Israel position makes it more difficult for Palestinians to come to the negotiating table. And that table is the only avenue through which peace and Palestinian self-determination will ever come.
Of course, anytime you raise the obsession with Israel when literally billions of people worldwide are experiencing worse conditions than Palestinians, you will be accused of “whataboutism.”
The hypocrisy and irony is jaw-dropping. It is the parrots of Palestinianism who are guilty of whataboutism. No matter the issue, conflict, or catastrophe, along come activists to divert attention from the problem and refocus it on: “Palestine! Palestine! Palestine!”
I know, I know. I am an unfeeling monster who is trying to deflect from the horrific deaths of thousands of Palestinians. Except, I am not. I grieve every death — Palestinian and non-Palestinian. Which is more than those activists can say. “Anti-Zionist” activists grieve deaths only when it serves their political agendas.
Indeed, they don’t even seem to grieve deaths at all; they relish them. They wave dead Palestinians around like trophies, precisely as the monsters who head Hamas knew they would. That’s why Hamas maximizes the numbers of dead Palestinians. Do you understand the math by now?
The accumulated global impacts of this hysterical, myopic obsession with one comparatively minor conflict, eclipsing everything else on Earth, can be explained only by one human characteristic. It is so unbelievably obvious I am not even going to name it because if you cannot see it, you might also be the problem.
Like I said at the beginning, there is a long-standing tradition to dismiss antisemitism unless and until it has the potential to harm non-Jews.
As unprincipled and unfortunate as that might be, it may very well be the most effective approach to the problem, sadly.
As much as I dislike that line of argument, I absolutely think we are overdue to apply it to “anti-Zionism.”
“Anti-Zionism” allows floods and famines, authoritarian dictatorships, child slavery, female genital mutilation, the imprisonment of Chinese Muslims in concentration camps, and countless other crises to go almost completely overlooked because all we care about are the make-believe “sins” of Israel.
This is one of the most thought-provoking and powerful essays that I have read on this site. Thanks Pat!
You simply can't hate Jews, without hating REALITY and TRUTH! As I grew up in a very, very antisemitistic Society myself, and know all the insides of it!