From European leaders to American media personalities, Zionism’s rationale is crumbling

One of the most important declarations in Israel’s history was issued last month: French President Emmanuel Macron said that Israel is fueling global antisemitism through its war crimes.  

Macron spoke out after Israeli PM Netanyahu accused Europe of pouring “fuel on [the] antisemitic fire” with plans to recognize a Palestinian state. Macron wrote Netanyahu a long letter, turning the accusation back on him.  

He said that Israel’s “murderous and illegal permanent war in Gaza,” was undermining the battle against antisemitism in France. Israel’s actions will “embolden those who use them as a pretext for anti-Semitism and endanger Jewish communities around the world.” 

Macron’s argument is a heresy – if you say it out loud, you are accused of justifying antisemitism. 

But any sensible person can see the truth in it. 

Israel’s genocide of Palestinians is a “threat to” Jewish safety in the west, the comedian Adam Friedland said recently, in a now-famous interview with pro-Israel congressman Ritchie Torres. 

“I think hatred of Jewish people has exploded in this country and I think it’s because of our support of what looks to be an absolute brutality,” Friedland said. “I’m telling you as a Jew right now that we are receiving a lot more hate because of what the people with the flag that has a Jewish star are doing to other people right now.”

Torres duly accused Friedland of justifying antisemitism, but that backfired. “Are you crazy?” Friedland said, and later told Torres to “shut up” because he didn’t know what he was talking about. 

Worrying about Jewish safety in the midst of a genocide of Palestinians is of course a sign of the problem. Jewish fears are always at the center of the west’s debate. The focus is understandable in light of Jewish history in Europe. The Jewish Question bedeviled policymakers and intellectuals for more than 100 years: what to do with a stateless, persecuted but influential people. After the Holocaust, Europe said Jews must have a state of their own.  

Now Palestine is experiencing a holocaust, and the world is coming to understand that Jewish nationalism is a formula for unending war. That is the good news about the Macron letter. 

The United States is coming much slower to this understanding. The establishment is holding out. Democratic voters overwhelmingly believe Gaza is a genocide, and they want a cutoff in aid. But the party bosses have adopted a See no evil stance. They are committed to sending arms to Israel and avoiding public votes on the matter. They seem to hope that the Israel issue will go away, that if the genocide discourse isn’t in the New York Times, it doesn’t affect them.

The base is undermining that arrogance on social media—the incredible Miss Rachel talks about Gaza every day to millions of viewers. 

And in July, Krystal Ball of the Breaking Points youtube show grilled Michigan Senator Elissa Slotkin over her support for genocide; and Slotkin grew flustered and froze. The senator agreed that Israel was pursuing an “ethnic cleansing” in Gaza, a war crime, but refused to say she would vote to end military aid. She also sought to deny that she gets money from AIPAC—though she has.    

And Slotkin had nothing to say as Ball pleaded with her to protect Palestinian children. 

“I feel really guilty that I’m not doing enough,” Ball lamented, a cry anyone of conscience can understand. 

Ritchie Torres’s humiliation was even worse. Friedland mocked the congressman’s fixation on the harassment of Zionists. Israel was founded with an “ethnic cleansing” and Palestinians are being  “demeaned and dehumanized and surveilled,” Friedland said. 

“That’s what the world is seeing. And you tell me the problem is someone is getting yelled at at a restaurant? I’m sorry.”

Friedland also explained the violence of October 7. “If you treat people like animals, sometimes they’re going to lash out.” 

The breakdown of the mainstream consensus on Israel is an opportunity for the left to get its message across. 

“As centrist denial about the genocide against Palestinians falls apart, many on the Left are negotiating how to engage those who — until recently— were clearly opponents and, now, could be needed allies,” Dania Rajendra and Rebecca Vilkomerson write at In These Times. 

The authors called for a “big tent.” 

Right now, everything should be done to build a political coalition to stop the slaughter and starvation of Palestinians. Macron is a longtime supporter of Israel but his description of Gaza as a “murderous and illegal permanent war” should be heralded. 

Anti-Zionist Jews must become greeters. We should encourage liberal Zionists either to get out of the way, like Jerry Nadler, or switch sides and join calls for democracy in the land, as Peter Beinart has done. And commend Friedland, a former Zionist, for saying that ethnic cleansing generates antisemitism.   

Yes, that argument makes Jewish safety the crux of the issue.

Yet the U.S. establishment will not break on support for genocide till the Jewish community breaks. Older Jews who support Israel remain a pillar of the Democratic party. AIPAC contributions are a symptom of the generational commitment to what Nadler calls the “Zionist dream.” Chuck Schumer, David Axelrod, Brad Sherman, and Bernie Sanders too still buy Jewish delusions about the Jewish state. And that view still predominates in the mainstream media– including influential voices like Thomas Friedman, Jake Tapper, and Dana Bash. CBS’s former owner Shari Redstone, who is 71, reportedly decided to sell the network because she was so distressed by a 60 Minutes report on Biden State Department resignations over genocide. 

The blindness of older pro-Israel Jews is the impediment to change inside the liberal establishment. Macron and Friedland are a threat to that blindness.  

Break that power and our media will finally focus on the American-sponsored genocide, 24/7. Then Trump will see the pictures, and move.