{"id":35798,"date":"2026-03-25T16:55:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T16:55:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/35798\/"},"modified":"2026-03-25T16:55:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T16:55:13","slug":"disagreeing-with-the-israeli-government-is-different-from-antisemitism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/35798\/","title":{"rendered":"Disagreeing with the Israeli government is different from antisemitism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

To the editor: I found the op-ed from guest contributors David N. Myers and Joshua Goetz on antisemitism to be illuminating (\u201cAntisemitism appears from the left and the right, but not equally,\u201d<\/a> March 20). The authors do an admirable job in differentiating anti-Jewish sentiment (actual antisemitism) from anti-Israel sentiment (which some may consider anti-Zionist or anti-colonial).<\/p>\n

Is antisemitism more rampant on the left or the right? Many progressives \u2014 especially younger liberals \u2014 reject doctrinaire colonialism and imperialism, and do not have the historical perspective on the history of the Middle East and the recent history of Israel. What some may view as occupation or even apartheid, others may see as a necessity for overt actions to protect the future of Israel and an independent Jewish state.<\/p>\n

The far right, however, is less nuanced. Many in that camp basically see anyone who is not white and Christian as the \u201cother\u201d and have come to propagate harmful \u201creplacement theory\u201d conspiracies<\/a>. That sentiment, indeed, is pure antisemitism and leads many on the right to resort to hate and even violence.<\/p>\n

Disagreeing with Israel\u2019s governmental policies and current leadership is not intrinsically antisemitic any more than disagreeing with current U.S. leadership and policies is anti-American or unpatriotic. However, extending that disagreement to hatred and violence against people owing to their religion is most definitely vitriolic antisemitism.<\/p>\n

We must deal with the reality that many in the progressive tent may harbor hatred toward the Jewish state and its policies and not necessarily toward Jewish people. Many in the far-right tent, meanwhile, may embrace the land of Israel for its biblical importance to Christianity, but want Jewish people to disappear.<\/p>\n

Michael Schneider, Truckee, Calif.<\/p>\n

..<\/p>\n

To the editor: Myers and Goetz attempt a serious analysis of antisemitism. Yet their suggestion that Israeli military action is a meaningful driver of global antisemitism rests on a form of sophistry that is, at bottom, intellectually sophomoric.<\/p>\n

The argument proceeds by abstraction. It isolates Israel\u2019s conduct from the historical conditions in which it occurs \u2014 decades of war, terrorism and explicit rejection of a Jewish state \u2014 and then treats that isolation as explanation. That is not analysis; it is a rhetorical maneuver.<\/p>\n

Israel must be subject to moral scrutiny, especially in war. But antisemitism is not a contingent reaction to Israeli policy. It predates the state, persists independently of it and readily exploits contemporary events as justification.<\/p>\n

To conflate Israeli actions with the causes of antisemitism is to mistake pretext for cause \u2014 and to risk placing responsibility for that hatred onto its targets.<\/p>\n

That is not clarity. It is argument by distortion.<\/p>\n

Stephen Macht, Los Angeles<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"To the editor: I found the op-ed from guest contributors David N. Myers and Joshua Goetz on antisemitism…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17587,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[2492,16044,723,16040,16038,2336,16039,37,16042,16041,396,12300,16043,2020,36],"class_list":{"0":"post-35798","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-israel","8":"tag-antisemitism","9":"tag-current-leadership","10":"tag-editor","11":"tag-governmental-policy","12":"tag-hatred","13":"tag-history","14":"tag-independent-jewish-state","15":"tag-israel","16":"tag-israeli-military-action","17":"tag-joshua-goetz","18":"tag-people","19":"tag-right","20":"tag-serious-analysis","21":"tag-violence","22":"tag-war"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116290868147550292","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35798"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35798\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}