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By MJ Rosenberg / Substack
A few Substacks ago, I mentioned I was being interviewed by an author writing a book about the Israel lobby, mostly AIPAC. Yesterday he called with one last question—not about the lobby, but about me. Why, beyond horror at what Israel is doing to the Palestinians, am I writing, thinking, obsessing over this so much?
At first, I said, isn’t genocide reason enough?
He pressed: “What about the personal angle? You’re not Palestinian. Could it be your lifelong connection to Israel, your involvement in Jewish life?”
I thought that was obvious. But after a moment, I said something that hadn’t even been on my radar until the last few months.
Here it is:
I now fear for Israel itself—not as a Jewish state, which is obviously neither tenable nor right, but for the very existence of Israelis as people.
Since October 7th, Israel’s actions have made a catastrophic scenario plausible. Nuclear-armed, surrounded by enemies, with their own weapons of mass destruction increasingly accessible to terrorists, the physical survival of Israel’s population is no longer an abstract question.
Why now? Because Israel’s behavior has turned regional and global opinion into active hatred at levels we’ve never seen. That hatred won’t vanish when the bombing stops—even if Israel withdrew from the West Bank, which it won’t do except under intense pressure in the form of suffocating sanctions. It will only disappear when Israel stops being an ethno-supremacist state and becomes a state where everyone living there is equal and equally secure.
After Gaza, it’s clear: Israel can no longer be a safe haven for Jews in the Middle East. Like apartheid South Africa, it can only survive when the system that produced genocide is dismantled. Not the people. The system. That is what Zionism has become—apartheid, although apartheid plus genocide. (Apartheid South Africa never tried to eradicate the native population.) For the white population in South Africa to survive, apartheid had to go.
I love Tel Aviv—and so much of Israel. I love its culture, its energy, and a civilization that, despite what its critics claim, is wholly unique and authentic. An Israeli isn’t simply a displaced Pole or Moroccan; they are, first and through and through, Israeli. And hummus is Israel’s national food—no matter that the Palestinians invented it—not bagels and lox.
Israelis cannot survive in a state gone mad. Nor as the most hated country on the planet, especially by the young. (Think about that; its base of support is almost entirely composed of people born in the two decades after World War 2). It’s lost the American people and, almost surely, Biden and Trump will be the last presidents to outsource their Middle East policy to Israel and its lobby. Candidates identified with Israel or funded by lobby cash will be eliminated in the primaries.
Then there’s the danger Israel poses to diaspora Jews. Anti-Zionism is not antisemitism. But antisemitism is antisemitism. And it’s growing exponentially—fueled by Israel’s actions.
The threat comes from the hard right, and it controls the White House, Congress, the Supreme Court, and half the state houses. As for the anti-Zionist “hard left,” it has no power at all. In fact, even the moderate left is powerless.
But the right is in control, and the president is a fascist.
Social media is filled with Jews as its latest obsession—joining refugees, trans people, and the perennial favorite, African Americans.
Rightwing pundits say Israel had Charlie Kirk killed (Kirk recently turned against Israel). And that Epstein and his fellow child molesters were Mossad. Megyn Kelly says she refuses to be silenced on Israel or Epstein, pointing out that no Jewish interests support her. Tucker Carlson despises Israel…and Jews. Candace Owens spreads antisemitism with Third Reich fervor. Steve Bannon, obviously. The list goes on and on. (Team Israel has Jerry Seinfeld though, whose youthful cutesy snark has evolved into nothing but a wizened billionaire’s contempt for everyone except the tribe).
You might say, wait, I’ve never heard of any of these internet people. That would just show you don’t spend enough time on the internet. I guarantee, if you did, you’d know. And what is on social media is far more indicative of what’s really going on in America than the New York Times, MSNBC, NPR, or CNN.
The far right has always been antisemitic, but used its “love” for Israel as cover. That cover is gone—not out of concern for Palestinians, but because Israel stands in the way of its America First worldview. Israel is now the one issue both left and right agree on. And out of that stew, real antisemitism grows. Not out of Palestinian, Jewish, and other progressive students protesting against Israel on Ivy League campuses.
Who is to blame? I don’t blame the right alone. Charlie Kirk sounded reasonable, talking about his changing views on Israel. Ben Shapiro and Mark Levin are rightly marginalized for being ultra-Zionists whose ethnic supremacy views blind them.
Crazy racist Jews around Trump—Laura Loomer and Stephen Miller—are more likely to usher us to concentration camps than save us. For them, liberals (i.e., 75% of Jews) are the enemy; Loomer and Miller are de facto antisemites themselves.
No, the blame lies with Israel and its enablers here. Those who support Israel’s current path are digging graves—of Israel, of Judaism, of the very safety of Jews in the best haven we’ve ever had. Israel wanted Trump. It got Trump. It wants all the land between the river and the sea, and it has it. It is committing genocide, and the United States smiles. And it endangers everything Jews traditionally held sacred. No, inventing clever weapons—exploding cell phones, undetectable drones, any high-tech tool meant to kill—has never been a Jewish value.
This is why, beyond the genocide, I am obsessed with Israel’s actions since October 7, 2023. I’m thinking of my grandkids.
Zionism, as it now exists, is our undoing. And those who think they are supporting Jews by supporting or being silent in the face of the Gaza genocide are not just wrong; they are doing the work of our worst enemies.
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