Note that US aid to Israel in 2022 (the last year before Oct 7, comprised <5% of US foreign aid, and ~0.05% of the US budget that year. And, as you noted, most of the aid to Israel (unlike aid to other countries) was required to be spent on US-made equipment.
Jew hate is the only explanation. You've spelled it out clearly in this insightful Essay. It's why the useful idiots can't see themselves for the dispicible, immoral creatures they are. Thier jew hate blinds them to the truth
This was very well written and organized but managed to exclude the barbaric Oct 7 attack. Obviously it’s not just relevant to why Israel launched its war but also shows the barbarity and depravity that went unacknowledged or entirely justified and cheered on. Hamas schools and rhetoric and unrwa being infiltrated by Hamas it would be farcical if there wasn’t a body count for it.
should’ve also delved into what genocide is bc no I don’t think people in *good faith* are hotly contesting genocide in Israel they’re redefining genocide. If genocide is ugly war event or any war event then every war is genocidal. That’s the point. The number of casualties what Israel could do and the civilian to soldier death ratio the lack of any genocidal intent makes genocide impossible. But it doesn’t rule out other war crimes or evils. Genocide is important to allege bc it’s necessary for demonizing Jews as victims doing the same to others. Anyone who knows what the Holocaust entailed would shrink at this and be appalled but that would require not harboring deep resentments towards Jews to begin with.
Things like the ICC corruption scandal highlight just how far up the food chain the anti semitism and double standard goes.
It also shows how the script is being flipped on Israel deliberately. Everything Hamas did Israel is accused of. Try it out online.
Hamas a violent repressive human shield using kleptocratic fascist theocracy is not held accountable nor are all the civilians who support them including those who held hostages and participated in the Oct 7 arson rape looting torture and murder. All their violence inciting anti semitic rhetoric and indoctrination is not just supported but makes any peace impossible. No one makes peace with neighbors committed to their end. By any metric this isn’t the locus of the worst evil in the world. Oct 7 could’ve been but it was halted. It’s really unsurprising that people who despise Jews have latched onto this en masse and people in the west who’ve been conditioned in higher ed to despise the west or to associate Israel with subjugation of literally everything on earth have joined in the chorus baying for blood. There’s a smaller contingent brainwashed by the deliberately dishonest media but I don’t give them a free pass because any overarching simplistic analysis would have one question why is this the center of hell? Are sharks really attacking everyone all the time because it keeps making the front page. I go to the beach daily and I’m still here. You can do this cheap easy mental work.
hate saying things like of course Israel does things wrong bc duh. No one is going to see anyone Jewish as impartial and they’ll always find a reason you’re not impartial. This isn’t and was never a war of logic. I don’t believe the angry enraged mobs really don’t know anything else that’s going on in the world. They look exactly like a lynching mob looks willfully ignorant and sadistic.
It’s not just selective outrage, one wishes. It’s inflated invented contorted and manipulated bile towards an insidious familiar end goal. But it won’t happen this time. They won’t get their museum where they mourn all the dead Jews.
The reason I didn’t go into those issues in this article was simply to stay focused and keep the word count manageable. But I completely agree that what happened on October 7, and the widespread justification or celebration of it, is central to understanding not just Israel’s response but the depravity of the global reaction.
You’re right that the misuse of “genocide” is part of a broader project of demonizing Jews as eternal aggressors. And yes, it’s scary how easily that lie has taken root in supposedly educated circles, especially when genocidal intent is entirely absent on Israel’s side and glaringly present on the other.
I appreciate the hard work but I felt you put so much thought into this and was really well composed and you don’t want to miss the forest for the trees. I know you know this that before even Israel responded the anti semitic explosion was under way. It didn’t come out of a vacuum. When you’re cataloging what everyone is ignoring I think it’s critical to again bring up the bloodbath of Jews that they not just ignored but largely cheered on while also saying it didn’t happen. That just blew my mind. Yay! Resistance! What did y’all think decolonization meant? Myth. Fantasy. Fake. Huh? I am not someone who can give people participating directly or peripherally a pass as I simply don’t believe they don’t have the capability of asking questions. Substack has a lot of emotion porn and I am very sympathetic when I read someone’s story. Sometimes it’s extreme enough that my feeling is if this is true it’s sick and I’m not going to equivocate it. Of course I don’t know it’s true but I’m not mediating. Other times I see more complexity between the lines and I’ll say what I think with the caveat that I don’t know the other persons side. If you can’t outline both sides you don’t belong on a side. Israels side is hardly we want to colonize and oppress. Israel’s side may not be true but it can’t come from your fantasies it has to come from majority Israeli opinion.
A very dark inversion of events is taking place with Israel. Israel is becoming a representation of every ugly nationalistic and belligerent ill of countries that this love crowd is cheering on. They’re not for peace. They’re opening gates for barbarians and soothing themselves saying it’s for the greater good of clearing up evil or “cleaning up the world”
When you see a sign with a Jewish star in the trash along with clean up the world and the person holding it is explaining that it means she doesn’t like Netanyahu there’s no reasoning that’s going to help. I want these folks to know what I believe they represent. They can bathe in illusion or tunnel vision but I’m going to call out what I see.
If from the river to the sea means something else say that something else bc Hamas has made it clear what they mean and the people shrieking it ready to club someone know damn well what it means.
How ever indeed did pogroms happen. Kristalnacht. Well thanks fine people for getting to me to understand something I wish I never came to understand. America shielded me bless her for most of my time on earth. But it’s happening here too. I’m pushing back. America is a shining city and should stay one. Thanks for all the hard work and know it’s appreciated.
Thank you for your support, especially if it is not grounded in Fulfillment Theology, Replacement Theology, Supersessionist Theology, and, ultimately, Supremacist Theology.
Thank you for this brilliant statement. What excellent research and summary. People killing one another all around the world. Even here in the USA we may be on the verge of sacrificing our poor and vulnerable citizens. But there is the great rule of thumb: When the going gets tough, we can always blame the Jews.
"whether [Israel's military action in Gaza] meets the legal definition of genocide remains hotly contested."
Expressing Israel's military action in Gaza tentatively as being "hotly contested" lends credence to the accusation. However, even a cursory reading of the Genocide Convention reveals that no such crime is being committed. In fact, according to International Humanitarian Law and Customary International Law, Hamas is committing multiple war crimes and crimes against humanity ranging from the taking of civilian hostages, using. civilians as shields, dressing as civilians, and aiming rockets and missiles at civilian populations.
"None of the accusations hurled at Israel apply to it any more than they do to dozens of other states. So why do they only stick to the Jewish one?"
When you adopt your enemy's words to describe yourself, whether done consciously or not to project an image of "even-handedness" or impartiality, you are legitimizing your enemies accusations. Fair enough if those accusations are substantiated by history and law, but vile distortions of fact if a willfully invented story manufactured to create hatred towards an identifiable group.
"People insist it’s not about Jews but it’s the government, the IDF, the policies, the Zionism. . . .
Today, it’s 'Zionists.' "
No one denies national people like the Chinese, the British, the Mexicans and many, many other countries their right to nationhood. Why? Because we do not deny the right of a national people to their own country. But we do deny this right to Jews not because they have over 3,500 year history of unbroken presence on their unceded, ancestral homeland despite waves of conquests, colonization, and apartheid policies inflicted on them, but because they are Jews.
To put it more succinctly, Zionism is Jewish nationalism, and a Zionist is a Jewish nationalist.
On the first point: i agree that calling the genocide accusation “hotly contested” inadvertently lends legitimacy to the accusation of genocide which I don’t actually support. I’ve written at length elsewhere (including in my piece How to Manufacture a Genocide) about why Israel’s actions in Gaza definitely do not meet the legal or moral definition of genocide. I tried in this piece to acknowledge the widespread academic and institutional use of the term without getting sidetracked into refuting it in full. but in hindsight, the phrasing implies more openness to the accusation than I intend. I agree it’s important not to grant that kind of rhetorical foothold, especially when bad faith actors or ideologically compromised institutions are behind much of the push to label Israel’s self-defense as genocidal. I will consider rewording this section in my original.
Re: the second point, I understand the concern that by drawing comparisons I may appear to legitimise the false accusations against Israel. My goal was to show that the terms being hurled at Israel are either inaccurate or selectively applied. I do push back against these accusations directly in the article, especially the apartheid and colonisation claims which definitely do not apply to Israel. But I also wanted to meet skeptical or critical readers halfway, those who might not be convinced by an outright defense of Israel, but who could begin to question the hypocrisy when they see similar or worse actions by other countries going ignored. That said, I agree this approach can blur the line. it’s something I’ll reflect on.
On your final point, agree. Zionism is simply Jewish nationalism. It is entirely antisemitic to single out the Jewish people as uniquely undeserving of national self-determination.
Thanks for highlighting how I need to be more precise in how I framed those points.
Thank you for your reply. I am always honoured when an author responds to my observations.
Allow me to apologize for having phrased my second point "When you adopt your enemy's words to describe yourself . . . you are legitimizing your enemies accusations." It reads like I was leveling a personal criticism. Much better would have been to use the first person plural pronoun "we" rather than the third person "you" because, as I intend to claim, anyone who adopts the vocabulary of his/her enemies is self-sabotaging themselves.
On a personal note, your observations were spot on. The arguments were organized, cogent, and well articulated. A pleasure to read. Thank you. Please keep posting more articles.
Thank you, Lucy, I read what you sent. Before I comment, let me assure you that we are on the same side, and you are a brilliant writer for presenting all this information in an easily digestible format.
Having said that, I believe you have some additional research to do. Your contention is that Jews, like the Rothschild family, bought land in Palestine from Arabs (mostly wealthy Syrians) and thus secured legal title. While that is true, the title to the land of Palestine did not come from that.
The title came from the San Remo Conference at the Villa Devachon in 1920. The Security Council of the Principal Allied Powers gave the land of Palestine to the Jewish people worldwide, and they had the legal right to do so. Chaim Weizmann, who was there, stated that this was the most momentous moment in Jewish history since the exile. I have been fortunate in that in 2010, I stood in the very space where those papers were signed, giving Jews land under law for the first time in 2000 years.
I suggest that you look up Dr. Jacques Gauthier Jerusalem and the late Howard Grief, the two experts on this subject. Once this knowledge is understood by Jews and non Jews throughout the world, everything has a chance of changing for the better.
I have not read every word in this piece, it’s long and I sense a lack of understanding. The author’s heart is in the right place, but she is not with it on fact.
For example, I did read the part on occupation. Her take is that this is not the only occupation in the world, and that there has been no occupation in Gaza since 2005. My take is that the only occupation are Palestinian Arabs occupying Jewish land. It’s not hard to prove.
Gaza was given to the Jewish people worldwide in 1920 at San Remo, Italy, and codified into law by the League of Nations in 1922. That is still the law today. Why? Because absent an agreement between the two sides to other conditions, we revert to the last law enacted.
There is no paperwork anywhere, that I am aware of, that says Arabs own Gaza. Even Israel leaving Gaza did not mean that they reliqushed title to the land. And Jews left because of vilence and threats, which disqualifies any chance at title being transferred to those who remained.
Other sections of the paper are equally incorrect. Israel is not guility because other countries did the same thing, they are not guility because they did not break international law. Hamas did though. And no one calls them out for it.
This post had a specific purpose to meet skeptical or critical readers halfway, those who might not be convinced by an outright defense of Israel, but who could begin to question the hypocrisy when they see similar or worse actions by other countries going ignored.
Absolutely 100% right on. A lot of great info all in one place. Thanks.
As brilliant author Daniel Jonah Goldhagen put it, antisemitism is “The Devil That Never Dies” (like the Devil, it just changes form).
Spot on!
Note that US aid to Israel in 2022 (the last year before Oct 7, comprised <5% of US foreign aid, and ~0.05% of the US budget that year. And, as you noted, most of the aid to Israel (unlike aid to other countries) was required to be spent on US-made equipment.
Jew hate is the only explanation. You've spelled it out clearly in this insightful Essay. It's why the useful idiots can't see themselves for the dispicible, immoral creatures they are. Thier jew hate blinds them to the truth
This was very well written and organized but managed to exclude the barbaric Oct 7 attack. Obviously it’s not just relevant to why Israel launched its war but also shows the barbarity and depravity that went unacknowledged or entirely justified and cheered on. Hamas schools and rhetoric and unrwa being infiltrated by Hamas it would be farcical if there wasn’t a body count for it.
should’ve also delved into what genocide is bc no I don’t think people in *good faith* are hotly contesting genocide in Israel they’re redefining genocide. If genocide is ugly war event or any war event then every war is genocidal. That’s the point. The number of casualties what Israel could do and the civilian to soldier death ratio the lack of any genocidal intent makes genocide impossible. But it doesn’t rule out other war crimes or evils. Genocide is important to allege bc it’s necessary for demonizing Jews as victims doing the same to others. Anyone who knows what the Holocaust entailed would shrink at this and be appalled but that would require not harboring deep resentments towards Jews to begin with.
Things like the ICC corruption scandal highlight just how far up the food chain the anti semitism and double standard goes.
It also shows how the script is being flipped on Israel deliberately. Everything Hamas did Israel is accused of. Try it out online.
Hamas a violent repressive human shield using kleptocratic fascist theocracy is not held accountable nor are all the civilians who support them including those who held hostages and participated in the Oct 7 arson rape looting torture and murder. All their violence inciting anti semitic rhetoric and indoctrination is not just supported but makes any peace impossible. No one makes peace with neighbors committed to their end. By any metric this isn’t the locus of the worst evil in the world. Oct 7 could’ve been but it was halted. It’s really unsurprising that people who despise Jews have latched onto this en masse and people in the west who’ve been conditioned in higher ed to despise the west or to associate Israel with subjugation of literally everything on earth have joined in the chorus baying for blood. There’s a smaller contingent brainwashed by the deliberately dishonest media but I don’t give them a free pass because any overarching simplistic analysis would have one question why is this the center of hell? Are sharks really attacking everyone all the time because it keeps making the front page. I go to the beach daily and I’m still here. You can do this cheap easy mental work.
hate saying things like of course Israel does things wrong bc duh. No one is going to see anyone Jewish as impartial and they’ll always find a reason you’re not impartial. This isn’t and was never a war of logic. I don’t believe the angry enraged mobs really don’t know anything else that’s going on in the world. They look exactly like a lynching mob looks willfully ignorant and sadistic.
It’s not just selective outrage, one wishes. It’s inflated invented contorted and manipulated bile towards an insidious familiar end goal. But it won’t happen this time. They won’t get their museum where they mourn all the dead Jews.
Hey, I actually agree with everything you’ve said here and have written extensively about both October 7 in several other posts, and the fabricated genocide narrative, especially in this piece: https://open.substack.com/pub/lucytabrizi/p/how-to-manufacture-a-genocide-a-masterclass?r=25bl88&utm_medium=ios
The reason I didn’t go into those issues in this article was simply to stay focused and keep the word count manageable. But I completely agree that what happened on October 7, and the widespread justification or celebration of it, is central to understanding not just Israel’s response but the depravity of the global reaction.
You’re right that the misuse of “genocide” is part of a broader project of demonizing Jews as eternal aggressors. And yes, it’s scary how easily that lie has taken root in supposedly educated circles, especially when genocidal intent is entirely absent on Israel’s side and glaringly present on the other.
Thanks for taking the time to write this.
I appreciate the hard work but I felt you put so much thought into this and was really well composed and you don’t want to miss the forest for the trees. I know you know this that before even Israel responded the anti semitic explosion was under way. It didn’t come out of a vacuum. When you’re cataloging what everyone is ignoring I think it’s critical to again bring up the bloodbath of Jews that they not just ignored but largely cheered on while also saying it didn’t happen. That just blew my mind. Yay! Resistance! What did y’all think decolonization meant? Myth. Fantasy. Fake. Huh? I am not someone who can give people participating directly or peripherally a pass as I simply don’t believe they don’t have the capability of asking questions. Substack has a lot of emotion porn and I am very sympathetic when I read someone’s story. Sometimes it’s extreme enough that my feeling is if this is true it’s sick and I’m not going to equivocate it. Of course I don’t know it’s true but I’m not mediating. Other times I see more complexity between the lines and I’ll say what I think with the caveat that I don’t know the other persons side. If you can’t outline both sides you don’t belong on a side. Israels side is hardly we want to colonize and oppress. Israel’s side may not be true but it can’t come from your fantasies it has to come from majority Israeli opinion.
A very dark inversion of events is taking place with Israel. Israel is becoming a representation of every ugly nationalistic and belligerent ill of countries that this love crowd is cheering on. They’re not for peace. They’re opening gates for barbarians and soothing themselves saying it’s for the greater good of clearing up evil or “cleaning up the world”
When you see a sign with a Jewish star in the trash along with clean up the world and the person holding it is explaining that it means she doesn’t like Netanyahu there’s no reasoning that’s going to help. I want these folks to know what I believe they represent. They can bathe in illusion or tunnel vision but I’m going to call out what I see.
If from the river to the sea means something else say that something else bc Hamas has made it clear what they mean and the people shrieking it ready to club someone know damn well what it means.
How ever indeed did pogroms happen. Kristalnacht. Well thanks fine people for getting to me to understand something I wish I never came to understand. America shielded me bless her for most of my time on earth. But it’s happening here too. I’m pushing back. America is a shining city and should stay one. Thanks for all the hard work and know it’s appreciated.
A perfect summary and unveiling of the myths and hypocrisy. Thank you!
anti-Judaism is an ancient virus that has infected billions s over millennium but no vaccines developed.
Thank you for this.
As a born again Christian, we arw a spinnoff of Judaism. Basically , my boss is a Jewish carpenter. 😍
"Basically , my boss is a Jewish carpenter."
And our boss is the Jewish carpenter's boss. :)
Thank you for your support, especially if it is not grounded in Fulfillment Theology, Replacement Theology, Supersessionist Theology, and, ultimately, Supremacist Theology.
Thank you for this brilliant statement. What excellent research and summary. People killing one another all around the world. Even here in the USA we may be on the verge of sacrificing our poor and vulnerable citizens. But there is the great rule of thumb: When the going gets tough, we can always blame the Jews.
EXCELLENT ARTICLE and100% correct
"whether [Israel's military action in Gaza] meets the legal definition of genocide remains hotly contested."
Expressing Israel's military action in Gaza tentatively as being "hotly contested" lends credence to the accusation. However, even a cursory reading of the Genocide Convention reveals that no such crime is being committed. In fact, according to International Humanitarian Law and Customary International Law, Hamas is committing multiple war crimes and crimes against humanity ranging from the taking of civilian hostages, using. civilians as shields, dressing as civilians, and aiming rockets and missiles at civilian populations.
"None of the accusations hurled at Israel apply to it any more than they do to dozens of other states. So why do they only stick to the Jewish one?"
When you adopt your enemy's words to describe yourself, whether done consciously or not to project an image of "even-handedness" or impartiality, you are legitimizing your enemies accusations. Fair enough if those accusations are substantiated by history and law, but vile distortions of fact if a willfully invented story manufactured to create hatred towards an identifiable group.
"People insist it’s not about Jews but it’s the government, the IDF, the policies, the Zionism. . . .
Today, it’s 'Zionists.' "
No one denies national people like the Chinese, the British, the Mexicans and many, many other countries their right to nationhood. Why? Because we do not deny the right of a national people to their own country. But we do deny this right to Jews not because they have over 3,500 year history of unbroken presence on their unceded, ancestral homeland despite waves of conquests, colonization, and apartheid policies inflicted on them, but because they are Jews.
To put it more succinctly, Zionism is Jewish nationalism, and a Zionist is a Jewish nationalist.
On the first point: i agree that calling the genocide accusation “hotly contested” inadvertently lends legitimacy to the accusation of genocide which I don’t actually support. I’ve written at length elsewhere (including in my piece How to Manufacture a Genocide) about why Israel’s actions in Gaza definitely do not meet the legal or moral definition of genocide. I tried in this piece to acknowledge the widespread academic and institutional use of the term without getting sidetracked into refuting it in full. but in hindsight, the phrasing implies more openness to the accusation than I intend. I agree it’s important not to grant that kind of rhetorical foothold, especially when bad faith actors or ideologically compromised institutions are behind much of the push to label Israel’s self-defense as genocidal. I will consider rewording this section in my original.
Re: the second point, I understand the concern that by drawing comparisons I may appear to legitimise the false accusations against Israel. My goal was to show that the terms being hurled at Israel are either inaccurate or selectively applied. I do push back against these accusations directly in the article, especially the apartheid and colonisation claims which definitely do not apply to Israel. But I also wanted to meet skeptical or critical readers halfway, those who might not be convinced by an outright defense of Israel, but who could begin to question the hypocrisy when they see similar or worse actions by other countries going ignored. That said, I agree this approach can blur the line. it’s something I’ll reflect on.
On your final point, agree. Zionism is simply Jewish nationalism. It is entirely antisemitic to single out the Jewish people as uniquely undeserving of national self-determination.
Thanks for highlighting how I need to be more precise in how I framed those points.
Thank you for your reply. I am always honoured when an author responds to my observations.
Allow me to apologize for having phrased my second point "When you adopt your enemy's words to describe yourself . . . you are legitimizing your enemies accusations." It reads like I was leveling a personal criticism. Much better would have been to use the first person plural pronoun "we" rather than the third person "you" because, as I intend to claim, anyone who adopts the vocabulary of his/her enemies is self-sabotaging themselves.
On a personal note, your observations were spot on. The arguments were organized, cogent, and well articulated. A pleasure to read. Thank you. Please keep posting more articles.
Yep. It’s antisemitism dressed up as hypocrisy. The accusation of genocide looks like holocaust denial to me. .
Very good article. Thank you.
Thank you, Lucy, I read what you sent. Before I comment, let me assure you that we are on the same side, and you are a brilliant writer for presenting all this information in an easily digestible format.
Having said that, I believe you have some additional research to do. Your contention is that Jews, like the Rothschild family, bought land in Palestine from Arabs (mostly wealthy Syrians) and thus secured legal title. While that is true, the title to the land of Palestine did not come from that.
The title came from the San Remo Conference at the Villa Devachon in 1920. The Security Council of the Principal Allied Powers gave the land of Palestine to the Jewish people worldwide, and they had the legal right to do so. Chaim Weizmann, who was there, stated that this was the most momentous moment in Jewish history since the exile. I have been fortunate in that in 2010, I stood in the very space where those papers were signed, giving Jews land under law for the first time in 2000 years.
I suggest that you look up Dr. Jacques Gauthier Jerusalem and the late Howard Grief, the two experts on this subject. Once this knowledge is understood by Jews and non Jews throughout the world, everything has a chance of changing for the better.
I have not read every word in this piece, it’s long and I sense a lack of understanding. The author’s heart is in the right place, but she is not with it on fact.
For example, I did read the part on occupation. Her take is that this is not the only occupation in the world, and that there has been no occupation in Gaza since 2005. My take is that the only occupation are Palestinian Arabs occupying Jewish land. It’s not hard to prove.
Gaza was given to the Jewish people worldwide in 1920 at San Remo, Italy, and codified into law by the League of Nations in 1922. That is still the law today. Why? Because absent an agreement between the two sides to other conditions, we revert to the last law enacted.
There is no paperwork anywhere, that I am aware of, that says Arabs own Gaza. Even Israel leaving Gaza did not mean that they reliqushed title to the land. And Jews left because of vilence and threats, which disqualifies any chance at title being transferred to those who remained.
Other sections of the paper are equally incorrect. Israel is not guility because other countries did the same thing, they are not guility because they did not break international law. Hamas did though. And no one calls them out for it.
I suggest reading some of my other pieces where I cover accusations like ‘occupation’ in more detail, like the fourth point in this one: https://open.substack.com/pub/lucytabrizi/p/four-of-the-most-viral-lies-about?r=25bl88&utm_medium=ios
This post had a specific purpose to meet skeptical or critical readers halfway, those who might not be convinced by an outright defense of Israel, but who could begin to question the hypocrisy when they see similar or worse actions by other countries going ignored.
I call Hamas out plenty in my articles.
Thanks for commenting. I have answered, but it's somewhere else on the page for reasons unknown.