By confusing Judaism and Zionism, institutional leaders have made Jews less safe everywhere.
A United Jewish Appeal sign in front of a synagogue.
(Creative Touch Imaging Ltd./NurPhoto via Getty Images) For several years now, community leaders and Jewish institutions have been warning of a precipitous rise in anti-Semitism in the United States — and for several years, I have been skeptical. Much of what was labeled “Anti-Semitism” is really just forceful opposition to Israel in response to its apartheid regime in the West Bank and its ongoing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Jonathan Greenblattthe head of the Anti-Defamation League and thus the main apparent authority on what constitutes anti-Semitism, made clear that he considers anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism to be indistinguishable; Under his leadership, the ADL praised the Trump administration’s crackdown on Palestinian activism on college campuses, the largest federal crackdown on college speech since the McCarthy era. Other alleged authorities – from Joe Biden’s former anti-Semitism envoy Deborah Lipstadt to the Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer at CBS News Bari Weiss– have consistently asserted that waving a Palestinian flag while chanting “from the river to the sea” is the functional equivalent of an anti-Semitic hate crime.
I’ve certainly encountered my share of anti-Semitic invective on the internet, and I’ve been horrified by incidents like the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in 2017 and the Tree of Life massacre in 2018, in which a white supremacist murdered 11 Jews at a Pittsburgh synagogue. But at no time in my 42 years have I felt seriously threatened or discriminated against as a Jew in the United States. I find the idea that federal agents could arrest Mahmoud Khalil and hold him without trial for more than three months, thereby making him disappear the birth of her first child– this is incalculably more disturbing than anything Khalil has ever said about Israel on the Columbia campus (which I don’t find disturbing at all), and my attitude toward the many Jewish leaders who disagree is best described as contempt.
But in recent months, it has become hard to deny that overt anti-Semitism is increasing, but not in the way Jewish community leaders are warning. A defining moment came last October, when Tucker Carlson hosted white supremacist Nick Fuentes, who praised Adolf Hitler and condemned “world Jewry,” for a friendly interview. Although Carlson faced considerable backlash from across the political spectrum, he stuck to his guns and his profile only grew, as did that of other unambiguously anti-Semitic right-wing influencers like Candace Owens and Dan Bilzerian. Carlson’s fans include a substantial portion of the MAGA right, which shares both his hostility toward Israel and toward Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu’s war on Iran. He has also received occasional support from some on the left who, while sometimes acknowledging Carlson’s more problematic positions, also credit him with a willingness to hold Israel accountable in a way that is virtually absent from mainstream television news.
Two highly publicized Carlson interviews earlier this year – with the US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee in February and with the editor-in-chief of The economist in March – received conditional praise from influential progressives like Zétéo founder Mehdi Hasan and former foreign policy advisor to Bernie Sanders Matt Duss. Both credit Carlson with asking tough questions about Israel that are rarely asked on television. And they’re not wrong. Top CNN anchors, for example, include Dana Bash and Jake Tapperboth of whom are unapologetic Zionists and who both view this ideological position as consistent with their position as neutral and objective journalists. The pro-Israel bias of most major media outlets has been evident for years, long before it was revealed that Bari Weiss could become the boss of Bash and Tapper.
But even as Carlson raises legitimate and well-articulated critiques of Israeli violence and lawlessness, he peppers his commentary with talking points that mix thinly disguised white supremacy with winking anti-Semitism. In a Economist In his interview, Carlson said, “I’m not a Zionist in any way. I don’t want a country to be destroyed at all, and I don’t want people to die, especially those who haven’t committed any crimes, because I don’t believe in killing innocent people, period” – which is a laudable statement that any left-wing anti-Zionist could agree with verbatim. But he immediately added: “That’s the basis of Western civilization. Eastern civilization is a completely different vision. They believe in collective punishment, I don’t.” Aside from being vague (What is “Eastern civilization”? Does it include Israel, which is often and reasonably presented by its critics as a settler society of European origin, and if so, the implication that Jews are “Oriental”?) and downright inaccurate (collective punishment has been practiced countless times by Western societies), Carlson clearly intends to signal to ideological racists that his anti-Zionism is compatible with their twisted worldview.
Fuentes, for his part, went further, explicitly linking the “organized Jewish community” with Israel and its hypnotic control of American conservatism, to the point of sending white Christians to die in its wars. “My problem with Trump is not that he is Hitler,” Fuentes said. “My problem with Trump is that he is not Hitler.” Fuentes effectively endorses violence against Jews broadly, using the rhetoric of anti-Zionism while erasing any distinction between Zionism and Judaism.
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The elite media’s inability to cover Israel objectively and express progressive anti-Zionist views has left a wide open path for bad-faith demagogues like Carlson and Fuentes, as have the countless failures of Democratic leaders. While the world’s leading human rights groups have taken turns valid What anyone with access to social media can see with their own eyes – that Israel has spent the better part of three years indiscriminately massacring Palestinians in Gaza – establishment forces refusing to acknowledge the same reality have undermined their own credibility. It’s no wonder that so many people are now open to viewpoints once considered fringe, and in some cases for good reason.
But it is also impossible to take into account the growing influence of the anti-Semitic right without considering how most Jewish institutions have themselves insisted that Judaism and Zionism are synonymous. In the main Jewish denominations and organizations, Zionist hegemony is almost total. Park East Synagogue, the large Modern Orthodox congregation on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, organizes events selling plots of illegally occupied Palestinian land in the West Bank, and when activists gather outside to protest, New York’s Democratic governor attempts to criminalize their speech while labeling it anti-Semitic. This unreserved adherence to Israel is in no way limited to Orthodox Jews; both Conservative and the Reform These movements are committed to Zionism at the highest levels, meaning that the vast majority of American synagogues are actively engaged in the Zionist project. Temple Israel in suburban Michigan, the nation’s largest Reform synagogue, has the Israeli flag in its logo and is marketing an event on its website where worshipers can register stay in a 5-star hotel in Tel Aviv and mingle with IDF soldiers; and while absolutely none of this justifies the attack on this country in March, it is also impossible to justify it on its own terms.
The sad truth is that no one is more responsible for the conflation of Israel and Zionism with Jews and Judaism than Jewish leaders themselves. For decades, major Jewish institutions have insisted that to be Jewish is to support Israel and that to criticize Israel is to attack Jews. Today, in 2026, Israel is widely and rightly perceived to have committed crimes against humanity in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and southern Lebanon, not to mention having led the United States in an illegal and strategically inept war against Iran that has driven up fuel and food prices around the world. None of this excuses violence against Jewish civilians or their places of worship. But that makes both much more likely. And by treating Palestinian left-wing activists as literal Nazis like Fuentes, Jewish leaders have devalued the very concept of anti-Semitism and created space for the real phenomenon to flourish.
“Anti-Zionism arises in response to what Israel is doing. It will simply not be possible to treat it as a fringe point of view that can be humiliated or pushed into invisibility,” said Ezra Klein, not really a radical. recently expressed an opinion In The New York Times. “If you keep telling people that if they oppose the Jewish state then they must hate the Jewish people, they will eventually believe you. »
He is right, and the corollary is that by supporting Israel’s morally indefensible conduct, Jewish institutions have also directly made every Jew on earth less safe. This includes those of us who have advocated tirelessly against Israel and Zionism, warned of this very danger, and faced ostracism and alienation from our own communities for doing so. To paraphrase one of our ancient exiled prophets, we will all reap the whirlwind.
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David Klion David Klion is a columnist for The nation and contributor to various publications. He is working on a book about the legacy of neoconservatism.