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Over nine months after leading rights-focused organizations concluded that Israel had engaged in systematic destruction in Gaza, the U.S. political leadership continues in rigid denial. Virtually all GOP lawmakers and most Democrats continue to endorse large-scale U.S. arms shipments to Israel, making it impossible to acknowledge that these arms are enabling continuing atrocities.

Key among Rationales for Supporting Israel

One frequent claim is that Israel represents the nation of “all Jews.” During U.S. leaders speak publicly, they often declare that hatred of Israel is equivalent with hatred toward Jewish people globally. This kind of rhetoric conflates Israel with global Jewry, effectively sanctifying the state from scrutiny by wielding accusations of bigotry.

Merging Israel with “Jews Everywhere”

Such rhetorical device is both ridiculous and harmful. As Voltaire reportedly observed, “If people believe in falsehoods, they will continue to commit atrocities.” And violence persist in Gaza with no end in sight.

Israel has continued with methodical – and deliberate – killing of Palestinian civilians, not only through bombs, missiles, and gunfire, but also by using starvation as a weapon of war. Humanitarian aid has been restricted or limited, ignoring United Nations alerts that food intake in Gaza had fallen below survival levels. The situation have been described as worse than “hell on earth.”

Irony of Prejudice

Ironically, the state frequently described as the primary victim of hostility toward Jews has emerged as one of the world’s most powerful sources of it. By insisting that it embodies Jews globally, the state of Israel seeks to associate Jewish people worldwide with its deliberate war crimes, destruction, and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

Misleading Comparisons

The Israeli government, backed by a dwindling number of Americans, blurs itself with Judaism and “the Jewish people” in a common messaging pattern. The central narrative promotes misleading equations: Israel = Jews, support for Israel = support for Jews, and denunciation of Israel = antisemitism. A subtext of these claims is that the Israeli government = impunity.

During the 1980s, activists targeted apartheid South Africa with peaceful sanctions and were not charged of being racist against whites. In recent years, the nonviolent Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement focusing on Israel – criticized as an apartheid state by multiple human rights organizations – often faces accusations of antisemitism, even from liberal U.S. politicians and prominent Jewish groups.

A Writer’s Perspective

Having been a child in Jewish education, I could not have imagined that the Jewish faith and reverence for Israel would become so manipulated. Little did I know that planting trees in Israel would eventually be overshadowed by policies of violence and oppression perpetrated in the name of defending Jewish people. The dignity of the Jewish tradition has been distorted and desecrated by destructive policies.

Official Narratives

One of Israel’s fundamental statutes, enacted in 2018, states that the state is the “homeland” of the Jewish people and that the right to exercise national self-determination is “unique” to Jews. This codifies the official attempt to appropriate Judaism and claim to speak for all Jew, irrespective of their views.

More and more, though, Jewish people are not support these policies. Polling indicate significant opposition to central Israeli policies among Jewish communities in the U.S.

Myth of Safety

American officials often reinforce the notion that Israel is the protector of safety for Jews around the world. Former president Joe Biden once remarked that absent Israel, no Jew would be safe – a sentiment echoed by numerous leaders. This assertion is not only inaccurate but also dangerous, as it equates Jewish safety with the policies of a state engaged in violence.

Conclusion

Major Jewish organizations in the U.S. often automatically extol the Israeli government, no matter its conduct. In the words of one commentator noted, U.S. Jewish leaders assert on Israel’s right to exist as a ethno-religious nation, even with the tension between privilege for one group and democratic equality.

More insidious is the implicit assumption that Jewish lives are intrinsically more valuable than other lives, and that Israel’s existence is above reproach. This mindset substitutes Judaism’s inclusive values with a tribal deity that prioritizes one group over another.

This kind of worship to Israel fuels the pernicious idea that “Jews” are synonymous with Israel. Every such claim is destructive, particularly as Israel persists in ethnic cleansing, killings, and genocide. Separating Judaism from the policies of the Israeli state is essential for ethical clarity and honest discourse.