The Temptation of "Righteous" Hatred

The scenes coming from Gaza for weeks now are horrific. One of the most densely populated areas in the world is turning into an apocalyptic ruin — and a graveyard. According to available data, nearly half the victims are children. True, these figures come from health authorities under Hamas control and, in the view of many, should not be trusted. But what does that actually mean? That it wasn't five or four thousand children who died, but "only" three thousand? Two thousand five hundred? Numbers are not irrelevant — in fact, I sincerely hope Hamas is inflating them for propaganda purposes, because that would mean fewer actual victims — and every human life, especially that of a child, matters. Still, such discrepancies do not alter Israel's responsibility for the destruction and civilian casualties caused by retaliatory actions for the massacre carried out by Hamas on October 7.

In the outrage over the devastation and human suffering — which I share — many are quick to label events as war crimes or even genocide. I remain more cautious with such judgments. Not only because these are legal definitions determined by international law, not by the intensity of emotions, no matter how justified, but also because I believe this kind of debate distracts from what truly matters: Israel must immediately change the way it conducts military operations in Gaza and take all measures to protect the civilian population and ensure access to all necessary forms of aid. This is an imperative rooted in basic humanity, and it is not contingent on whether future legal assessments will deem current operations to have been consistent or inconsistent with international humanitarian law.

This does not mean Israel has no right to self-defence — it certainly does, including military action against Hamas murderers responsible for the crimes of October 7. But the imperative of defence and security also requires Israel to wage this war differently, with real and effective concern for civilian protection. What we've seen so far will leave scars and breed hatred. If anything, Israel should heed the bitter lesson of Bush's war on terror after 9/11: the only truly effective counterterrorist action is the one that stops more terrorists than it creates.

The protests and expressions of solidarity with Palestinians, taking place around the world, including here, are for all these reasons expected and justified. They send a message to Israel that its actions are not only causing suffering to Palestinians but also harming its own standing and reputation. These protests apply pressure to Western governments, which, in the justified and understandable solidarity after the October 7 massacre, in their unwavering support, forgot that true friendship requires telling an ally hard truths — and protecting them from the consequences of actions born of pain and rage. They are a response to parts of that political class trying to use war and suffering to push their own agendas and stoke culture wars. And a red card to those who mask their latent (or not so latent) antisemitism with expressions of support for the current Israeli government.

But then we see the defacing of the Jewish Cultural Center in Ljubljana, with the Star of David equated to the swastika. And other antisemitic incidents and outbursts of hatred, which have been rising sharply across Europe for years and have exploded in recent weeks. Strasbourg has the second-largest Jewish community in France. Today, they live in fear. Each evening, a colleague hides her Star of David pendant under her clothing before heading home, to avoid being recognized. The rise in antisemitism cannot and must not be arbitrarily attributed to those justifiably protesting Israeli policy or expressing solidarity with Palestinians. This is what former UK Home Secretary Suella Braverman attempted when she called the protests "hate marches." Many of the people responsible for antisemitic acts don't care about Palestinians at all — some even hate them almost as much as they hate Jews.

Yet increasingly, we see people, in justified outrage over Gaza, who, unintentionally or in the heat of the moment, contribute to an atmosphere that trivializes or even normalizes antisemitism. As the controversial saying goes — which some claim is black Jewish humour born of centuries of persecution, and others see as pure hatred: "An antisemite is someone who hates Jews more than they deserve."

This commentary refers to people who, in their outrage over Palestinian suffering, cannot or will not also express outrage over the brutal murder of more than 1,300 Jews by Hamas on October 7. Clear condemnation of that crime does not dilute sincere solidarity with Palestinians — it strengthens it. The same goes for those who, in their condemnations, fail to distinguish between the actions of the Israeli government and all Israeli citizens, or even all Jews — even as they rightly criticize Israel for failing to distinguish between Hamas and all Palestinians.

Especially troubling is the invocation of the Holocaust in the context of Gaza. Simplistic comparisons between Israel's retaliatory actions and the Nazi genocide of six million Jews are grossly inappropriate and, by themselves, can reflect antisemitism. The IHRA definition of antisemitism — adopted by Slovenia — states that it's entirely legitimate to criticize Israel on the same terms as other countries. But equating Israel with the Nazi regime crosses the line and may constitute antisemitism. In other words, if civilizational standards applied to all states are not enough for your critique of Israel, and you must lean on the crutch of trivializing the greatest crime in human history, then perhaps it's worth thinking twice before you speak. Especially since that same message is echoed in the graffiti on the door of the Jewish Cultural Center, now being met with self-righteous handwringing.

Also questionable is the increasingly broad-brush use of the term "Zionism," which for many has become a criminal ideology equated with other abominable "-isms." A 2022 Council of Europe recommendation on Holocaust remembrance and preventing crimes against humanity emphasized the need to treat Zionism in its historical context: as a response to rising antisemitism in the late 19th century and as a national independence movement akin to the revolutions of 1848. Simplistic interpretations of Zionism, now rampant, are labelled by the Council as "radical anti-Zionism" and a form of antisemitism.

Yes, Zionism means many things to many people and is indeed used today to justify unacceptable policies and actions. But superficial critics of Zionism, deliberately or not, often question Israel's right to exist. They trace the roots of today's tragedy to the mere arrival of Jews in a land where Palestinians lived — and the founding of a Jewish state. Combining emotional fervour, ideological zeal, intellectual laziness, and historical shallowness, they cast the origin of Israel in the mold of colonialism and anti-colonial struggle, ignoring anything that doesn't fit that narrative. For example, that Jews already lived in the area before Israel's founding. Some came in the early 20th century as followers of Herzl's Zionist movement; many arrived in the 1930s fleeing Nazi persecution. When Hannah Arendt fled Germany in 1933, she joined a youth Zionist emigration group in Paris. After the war, Holocaust survivors — often literal skeletons — joined them in Palestine. And finally, hundreds of thousands of Jews expelled from other regional countries came as well.

These frequently ignored facts do not justify actions against Palestinians or diminish their suffering under decades of occupation. But they do demand that we consider both the Nakba and the Holocaust when grappling with the complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Jewish state is a consequence of centuries of persecution, culminating in the crematoria of the Nazi death camps. That's why the late Palestinian intellectual Edward Said called Palestinians "victims of victims," refugees from refugees.

Those who deny Jews the right to a state never offer an alternative: what should have happened to the Jews, in 1947 or today, if Israel didn't exist? That alone reveals how unhelpful the anti-colonial mindset is in solving this conflict. After decolonization in Africa, the Portuguese went to Portugal, the French to France, the Belgians to Belgium, the British to Britain. Where would you send the Jews? To Madagascar?

And once again, although it may seem impossible in the current war, the only path to lasting peace remains the two-state solution. Both Palestinians and Israelis have the right to safety, peace, freedom, and a future built side-by-side as neighbours, not enemies. Achieving that requires many things. An immediate end to the suffering of innocent Palestinian civilians. A change in Israeli policy to create conditions for a two-state solution, instead of the current approach — especially the violent expansion of settlements — which deliberately undermines it. And finally, a determined fight against antisemitism, which never disappeared but is now growing and becoming disturbingly acceptable to many.