Israel has a right to exist? That’s not up for debate.
The real war against Israel is linguistic. When they can't defeat the Jews militarily, they resort to recycled prejudices disguised as moral insight.
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In the months since October 7th, the global conversation about Israel has grown increasingly absurd.
The vocabulary used to describe the world’s only Jewish state has become a kind of code: a way for people to signal moral superiority while masking deep prejudice.
The same tired phrases are repeated endlessly. On the surface, each sounds neutral or reasonable. In reality, they reflect one of the oldest biases in human history: the belief that Jews must forever justify their existence.
It’s time to retire all of these eight phrases:
1) ‘Israel has a right to exist.’
Israel’s existence is not a matter of opinion. It’s a fact.
The phrase “Israel has a right to exist” suggests that the Jewish People must continually petition the world for permission to live in their own homeland — as though our legitimacy depends on the goodwill of others. No one says “Japan has a right to exist,” or “France has a right to exist.” They simply exist.
Israel’s legitimacy was not conferred by the United Nations or by foreign powers. It is rooted in thousands of years of history, culture, and faith. The Jewish People returned home, rebuilt their language, restored their land, and revived their sovereignty. That is what defines Israel’s existence, not the approval of anyone else.
To say “Israel has a right to exist” is to imply that it might not. That question was settled once and for all in 1948.
As the great Zionist leader and then-Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin told a young U.S. Senator named Joe Biden in 1982:
“Don’t threaten us with cutting off your aid. It will not work. I am not a Jew with trembling knees. I am a proud Jew with 3,700 years of civilized history. Nobody came to our aid when we were dying in the gas chambers and ovens. Nobody came to our aid when we were striving to create our country. We paid for it. We fought for it. We died for it. We will stand by our principles. We will defend them. And, when necessary, we will die for them again, with or without your aid.”
2) ‘Israel has a right to defend itself.’
This one is even more absurd. Of course Israel has a right to defend itself — like every nation on earth.
When any other country faces terror, no one demands that it justify its response. When the U.S. was attacked on 9/11, no one questioned whether it had the right to act. But when Jews defend themselves, suddenly the world discovers nuance. Suddenly, self-defense becomes “disproportionate.”
The problem isn’t that people question Israeli military tactics; it’s that they question Jewish self-protection itself. The underlying assumption is that Jewish vulnerability is noble, but Jewish power is dangerous. That is not morality; that’s a recycled prejudice.
If you have a problem with Jewish power, then you have a problem with Jews. And if you have a problem with Jews, then you are an antisemite.
3) ‘Israel’s Far-Right Government’
Western media loves to reflexively label Israel’s elected government “Far-Right” whenever it gets the chance to. It’s a phrase not of analysis, but of condescension.
We don’t refer to Germany’s government as “the centrist government” or Canada’s as “the Left-leaning coalition.” In functioning democracies, we simply say “the elected government.” The Israeli government, too, is “the elected government.”
Calling it “Far-Right” is not a description; it’s an accusation. It implies that Israelis who vote conservative are morally suspect or politically extreme, even though they live under existential threat and vote accordingly. It’s a way of saying: “We would make better choices if we were you.”
Actually, Israel is one of the few model societies in today’s world. While many parts of Europe collapse and while America, Canada, and Australia are starting to disintegrate, Israel continues to churn out a society rich in family values, national service, hard work, love of the land, democracy, international travel, education (the most college degrees per capita), culture (the most museums per capita), and innovation (the most startups per capita).
Labeling Israel’s government “Far-Right” is not journalism or political critique; it’s arrogance masquerading as moral concern.
4) ‘Antisemitism and anti-Zionism are two different things.’
No, they are not.
“Anti-Zionism” is the modern mutation of antisemitism. It targets the Jewish collective rather than the Jewish individual, but the logic is the same: Jews are fine, until they have power.
For centuries, antisemites denied Jews equality in their societies and among the nations. Today, “anti-Zionists” deny Jews nationhood among nations. The vocabulary changes; the hatred does not.
To hate Zionism is to hate the Jewish People’s right to self-determination. You cannot separate Judaism from Israel any more than you can separate Catholicism from Rome or Islam from Mecca. Israel is not a foreign project; it is the living center of Jewish civilization.
“Anti-Zionists” pretend they are opposing a political ideology. In truth, they are opposing Jewish continuity. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either a flaming moron or a Jew-hater.
5) ‘The Conflict’
Even the most neutral-sounding phrase conceals bias.
“The conflict” implies two equal sides locked in a tragic misunderstanding — a quarrel between neighbors. But that framing is false. There is no symmetrical “conflict” between a democratic state that values life and a terror society that glorifies death.
One side builds bomb shelters to protect its civilians. The other hides rockets beneath hospitals. One side educates its children for peace; the other indoctrinates them with martyrdom.
Calling it “the conflict” flattens moral distinctions and turns an ongoing campaign against Jewish survival into a polite diplomatic abstraction. It makes the aggressor and the defender sound interchangeable. The phrase is not neutral; it is anesthetic.
6) ‘The Occupation’
“Occupation” has become one of the most weaponized words in the modern lexicon. It’s used not to describe geography, but to erase history.
In every other context, “occupation” means conquest — one nation ruling over a foreign people. But when Jews live in Judea and Samaria, the very cradle of Jewish civilization, it’s called “occupation.” When Arabs live there, they’re called “indigenous.”
This inversion of language is deliberate. It’s meant to turn the return of a people to their homeland into a moral crime. But the Jewish connection to that land predates Islam, Christianity, and the Roman Empire. You cannot “occupy” your own home.
To call it “occupied territory” is to deny Jewish belonging, to treat Jewish presence as an intrusion. That’s not a political description; it’s a linguistic form of deliberate erasure.
The phrase “the occupation” entered mainstream discourse after Israel’s victory in the 1967 Six-Day War, when Israel captured the West Bank (then controlled by Jordan), Gaza Strip (then controlled by Egypt), East Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, and the Sinai Peninsula. That is not “occupation”; it’s victory in a war that the Arabs raged against Israel (again).
Only the Jews are expected to win defensive wars and then resort to the pre-war status quo, as if nothing happened. Every other nation that wins a defensive war is allowed to secure its borders, set new terms, and protect its citizens. But when Israel wins — when Jews refuse to die quietly — the world calls it “occupation.” It’s as if Jewish survival itself is treated as an overreach.
Then, in the 1990s, the “peace process” reintroduced “the occupation” into every diplomatic conversation as its central grievance. The phrase now functioned as a moral baseline: Even those who supported Israel reflexively used “the occupation” to describe the territories, accepting its implied illegitimacy.
But here’s the inconvenient fact that many people conveniently forget: The Palestinians had a chance to found their own state in 2000, and then-Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat walked away from the negotiating table and ignited the Second Intifada, resulting in more than 1,000 mostly civilian Israeli deaths. Israelis’ resolve understandably hardened and they moved on; the Palestinians haven’t, as if they can continue to murder Jews and pretend like it’s no big deal.
No nation on earth would tolerate that, and Israelis won’t either. It’s called self-respect.
7) ‘The Peace Process’
Once, this phrase carried genuine hope. Now it’s a ritual incantation, a tired mantra repeated by diplomats who no longer believe it themselves.
The “peace process” has become a process without peace. Israel has made offer after offer, withdrawn from territory, dismantled settlements, even handed over entire regions — only to be met with rampant terrorism, rocket fire indiscriminately aimed at population centers, and outright rejection.
Peace is not produced by process; it’s produced by partners. And Israel does not have one. The Palestinian leadership has never accepted a permanent Jewish state of any size. Their strategy is not negotiation; it’s attrition.
To continue invoking “the peace process” is to cling to a fantasy that flatters diplomats and blames Israel for a failure it did not create. It’s time to retire this phrase and confront reality: Peace requires reciprocity, not repetition.
8) ‘Violent Israeli Settlers’
Every country has bad actors. Every society has criminals, extremists, or people who act outside the law.
But you don’t hear about “violent Australians” when a few Australians commit crimes. You don’t see the media branding all of Spain’s citizens as “aggressive” because a small number protest violently, or labelling all Vietnamese “radical” because of isolated attacks.
Yet when a small number of Israelis clash with Palestinians, destroy property, or commit acts of violence, the language immediately shifts: “violent Israeli settlers.” The implication is that the violence is intrinsic to the people themselves, rather than the actions of a minuscule minority — and that the Jewish presence in the land is inherently aggressive.
This framing does more than report isolated incidents; it delegitimizes the entire population. It transforms a handful of criminals into a moral indictment of Jewish sovereignty. Every other nation gets nuance and context; Israel is judged collectively. Every other people is allowed to have bad actors without it defining their national character. Only Jews are reduced to their worst behavior.
And yet, here’s the reality: Israeli society is overwhelmingly law-abiding, democratic, and pluralistic. The “violent settler” is not the default; it’s the exception. But by repeating the phrase, media and activists treat Israel itself as guilty — as if defending your homeland, farming your ancestral land, or living in your own country is inherently violent.
Every one of these phrases operates within a framework of conditional legitimacy.
Jews may exist, but only if they behave as others demand. Israel may defend itself, but only if it bleeds first. Its government may govern, but only if foreigners approve. Its peace must be negotiated, but only on someone else’s terms.
This is not equality. It is paternalism. It’s a worldview that treats Jewish self-determination as an experiment that must constantly be supervised and morally graded.
For 2,000 years, Jews were told what they were allowed to be. When powerless, we were pitied; when powerful, we are feared. In exile, we were accused of being disloyal; in sovereignty, of being oppressive. The vocabulary changes, but the logic endures.
The Jewish People have outlasted every empire that presumed to define them. Babylon fell. Rome fell. So did the inquisitors, the czars, the Nazis. And so will the Red-Green Alliance. Every empire that tried to define us is now a museum exhibit. Israel is alive. Hebrew is alive. The Jewish story is alive.
And that, more than anything, is what many people still can’t forgive. They keep speaking as if they hold a veto on Jewish existence. They don’t. Our covenant was never with the nations; it was with history itself, with the desert that bloomed, with the prophets who dreamed, and with the generations who refused to disappear.
Israel does not exist because the world allowed it. It exists because the Jewish People willed it — again, after everything. Our right to this land is not contingent, not conditional, and not up for debate. It is ancestral, eternal, and earned.
Great essay Joshua. Keep up the good work. As I wrote in a recent post, "The Jewish story, properly told, isn’t about what was done to us — it’s about what we’ve built since. And until we teach that story — unapologetically, proudly, relentlessly — we’ll keep ceding moral ground to those who mistake destruction for justice." https://jewnewsreview.substack.com/p/the-jew-news-review-november-1-2025
I agree most of what you wrote, except the issue of "violent settlers": some really are violent, and although they constitute but a small part of the Israeli citizens in the West bank, they enjoy the protection of the IDF as Israelis on the one hand, but the IDF does not stop them from attacking Palestinians on the other. So it is disingenuous to compare it to any other country that has its violent elements: here, they carry out their depredations under the protection of the Israeli army, making the country complicit. And that is because Israel does have, in fact, a "far-right government" - or at least one where the far-right gives the tone.
So while much of the hatred directed at Israel is just a new form of Jew-hatred, one must acknowledge that some of the criticism is justified, and could - and should - be honestly addressed.