Just days before the election for mayor of New York City, a group of rabbis issued a “Call to Action” attacking public figures such as Democratic candidate Zohran Mamdani, who they say, “refuse to condemn violent slogans, deny Israel’s legitimacy, and accuse the Jewish state of genocide”.
The rabbis’ letter then leaps to the unfounded conclusion that Mr Mamdani’s support for Palestinian human rights and his critique of Israeli behaviour is acting to “delegitimise the Jewish community and encouraging and exacerbating hostility towards Judaism and Jews.”
In addition to this logical fallacy, there is an inherent danger in conflating Israel with the religion of Judaism and, by extension, conflating criticism of Israel or Political Zionism with anti-Semitism. This matter has long been a subject of debate, in particular, within the Jewish community.
During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as the idea of Zionism was being debated by European Jews, there were competing currents of thought, even amongst those who agreed that the Jewish people had a connection with the biblical land of Israel.
Some saw the connection as spiritual; others had a more secular cultural bond. While some in these two camps sought a partnership with the Arabs who inhabited the land, the view that came to dominate the new movement advocated, instead, for an exclusive Jewish state in Palestine. It was called Political Zionism and, tying itself to British colonial ambitions in the Middle East, this movement described the Arabs of Palestine in the same way the British defined those whom they subjugated in other lands – objects of contempt who were undeserving of rights.
In the early 1920s, a British journalist reported witnessing a group of European Jews carrying flags bearing the Star of David marching through the streets of Jerusalem chanting “Jerusalem is ours,” and “We want a Jewish State”. The journalist observed that Jerusalem’s inhabitants – Christians, Muslims, and Jews – were mostly befuddled. The flag with the star was foreign to them, as were the slogans.
Arabs who objected to the march were accused of attacking Judaism because the flags included a Star of David. They were not. They were objecting to claims of European Jews that Jerusalem was theirs, as well as to the marchers’ stated goal of ignoring Arab rights and supplanting them with a colonialist-supported foreign state.
As the British designs on Palestine and their pledge to the Political Zionist movement became known, the Arabs of Palestine came to understand the portent of that early Jerusalem march. During the next three decades, a bloody conflict unfolded.
While American Jews had some sympathy for their co-religionists in Palestine, the majority did not embrace Zionism or Israel as their self-identity. This was true even after the 1948 War and Israel’s Declaration of Independence.
In the 1960s, several factors combined to make a change in American Jewish attitudes towards Israel: the US was in the midst of the Cold War; the McCarthyite anti-communist surge that was tinged with anti-Semitism; and the anti-Vietnam war and the civil rights movements that combined to challenge the American identity.
In this context, the successful 1960s hasbara film, The Exodus, and Israel’s victory in the 1967 war played significant roles in moving American Jews to demonstrate greater affinity with Israel.
But affinity and financial support were not enough for Political Zionists. They continued to push the notion that Zionism and Judaism were the same.
In the 1970s, leaders of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a group that had long been in the vanguard of defending Jews against bigotry, co-authored a book titled The New Anti-Semitism, advancing the case that since in their view Israel was so central to Judaism and Jewish identity, being against Israel was the newest form of hatred against Jews.
It was decades before this dangerous conflation took hold. Efforts by the powerful pro-Israel lobby to pass legislation in Congress equating criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism were repeatedly stymied by both Republicans and Democrats.
When the arena shifted to the states, the pro-Israel forces were more successful. To date, more than three dozen states have passed such controversial bills, threatening protected speech.
In the wake of the public outrage that followed Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack, the ADL and its allies in government and media saw the opportunity to press hard to make the case that the student protests against Israel’s war on Gaza were threatening to the identity of Jewish Americans.
It didn’t matter to them the protests were against Israeli actions not Jews, nor that polls were showing that Jewish Americans were deeply divided over Israeli policies. Instead, they supported efforts by Republicans to have the protests banned and pushed universities to punish students who engaged in criticism of Israel.
Thousands of students were arrested, and many were suspended from their universities and had their degrees withheld. Faculty who supported the students were silenced or terminated, and some foreign students were held for deportation because they had been critical of Israel.
Despite the fact that attacks against both Arab American and Jewish American students increased, the ADL and Republicans in Congress used a weaponised definition of anti-Semitism that slighted Arab concerns or judged them as extremism worthy of criminalisation. Meanwhile Jewish concerns were prioritised as legitimate and worthy of full-throated support and action.
One such scene stands out: During the early campus protests against Israel’s war on Gaza, US television captured a scene which was deeply troubling in its implications. A young Jewish woman with a large Israeli flag draped around her neck like a cape was shown walking right into the middle of a pro-Palestinian demonstration. She was followed by a reporter and camera. Despite her deliberate provocation and the fact that she was ignored by the pro-Palestinian protesters, the woman could be heard saying to the reporter: “I just want to feel safe”.
Enter Zohran Mamdani. He is an elected member of the New York State legislature whose entry into the mayoral contest electrified voters. His charisma and agenda to make New York more affordable has won support from young voters, the city’s working class, recent immigrants, and liberals. After decisively winning the Democratic primary, New York’s financial elites and political establishment mobilised to defeat Mr Mamdani in the general election.
While polls are showing him still holding a substantial lead over his main opponent, billionaire donors have poured tens of millions into ads that ironically have used anti-Muslim tropes to defame and smear the candidate and his community.
While there are many issues at play in this contest, the dominant media narrative has been that Mr Mamdani’s criticism of Israel is making the city unsafe for Jews. This is easily disproven by the most recent poll of Jewish voters showing Mr Mamdani tied with his nearest competitor – and leading by two to one among Jews between the ages of 18 to 45.
Mr Mamdani’s support of Palestinians and his agreement with almost all US and international human right groups (including Israeli organisations) that Israel is committing genocide is not anti-Semitic.
This shouldn’t threaten Jews. In fact, the threat to Jews comes from those who falsely equate all Jews with the Israeli government’s deplorable behaviours.
