The Jewish nation is under a dual assault: a physical assault led by Hamas; and an ideological assault led by parts of the media, the UN, and protesters in the streets of Europe and on college campuses in America.
Like in previous large-scale assaults on Judaism, these assaults are autonomous but feed off each other.
Hamas depends on ideological attack on Jews
Hamas’s war doctrine depends on the ideological assault on Judaism: Sustain a few tough weeks or months in the tunnels protected by human shields, and count on their de facto partners in the media, UN, and global organizations to mount international pressure on Israel to stop its counter-operation. Israel, the thinking goes, would eventually be forced to stop, hence Hamas survives and can launch more attacks.
This Hamas media de facto alliance worked well in previous rounds. One recalls the days in 2005 when UN leaders, progressive activists, liberal journalists, and others, urging Israel to unilaterally withdraw from Gaza, pledged that if Israel will ever be attacked from Gaza after its withdrawal, they will all stand with Israel when it fights back against its attackers, since Israel would then have the “moral high ground.”
Indeed, following Israel’s full withdrawal, which included uprooting all traces of Jewish life in Gaza, Israel enjoyed a few months of frivolous love from those circles.
But when Hamas attacked Israel from Gaza, those same “moral high ground” people forgot their pledge, just as the chief butler to Pharaoh forgot Joseph. Instead, they reverted back to their addictive nature of Israel-bashing. Israel’s right to defend itself was even labeled by the UN as a “crime against humanity”!
The equation Jews defending themselves = a crime against humanity is not new. It has been a staple of the 2,300-year-old European-Israeli conflict dating back to the Greek invasion of Judea – the backdrop to Hanukkah.
It carried on with the next invader from Europe – the Romans, who destroyed the Temple and deported the Jews, mostly to Europe. It then continued through abusive persecution of those Jewish refugees in Europe for nearly 2,000 years.
Indeed, in the mid-19th century, famed opera composer Richard Wagner aggressively promoted that equation to Europeans by explaining that Jews pollute humanity. Moreover, such Jewish “crimes against humanity” are incurable, according to Wagner. A Jew cannot help himself – he cannot be Europeanized; therefore, the only solution to the malaise Jews bring to humanity is annihilation.
Generations of Europeans were indoctrinated with this mantra that the mere existence of Jews is a crime against humanity, which eventually translated into ample European cooperation with the genocide of European Jewry, led by the Nazis.
The Wagner indoctrination led to the spread of antisemitism (the new form of opposition to Judaism during the mid/late 19th century).
The UN indoctrination led to the spread of anti-Zionism (the new form of opposition to Judaism during the early 21st century).
Akin to Wagner’s article “Jews in Music,” the UN issued the 2009 Goldstone Report, accusing Jews in Israel of crimes against humanity. While Goldstone – a Jew himself – later partially retracted his slanderous accusations, it was too late. Rather, it was immaterial in what became a populous multi-front ideological assault on the Jewish nation through Israel-bashing and anti-Zionism.
Rather quickly, it became rooted in Western society that the Jewish state is “happy to kill Palestinian children,” as explained by a BBC presenter earlier this year to millions of viewers. This was based on the fact that some of the Islamic Jihad terrorists murdering Israeli civilians in early 2023 were under 18, hence Israel shooting back at them, per the BBC presenter, amounts to the Jewish state being happy to kill children (the BBC later partially retracted this, but again, it was too late in the indoctrination process).
Add various other reports from the UN, Amnesty International, various NGOs, and endless slanderous news items in other credible Western media such as CNN and The New York Times, and naturally the Western mind is set: The Jews are at it again – the Jewish state commits crimes against humanity!
With such solid ideological framing, Hamas could launch its October 7 attack with confidence. Israeli officials would not be able to reverse decades of indoctrination through TV appearances (hasbara), and eventually international pressure would mount on Israel to stop, and to deliver Hamas the victory (“ceasefire now”).
Indeed, when the time comes to investigate the causes of war and how to prevent the next war, one will need to take a fresh look at the media’s role and acknowledge a new difficult reality: The media is not an observer but an actor in the war.
Ideological attack on Jews depends on Hamas
The Hamas physical attack is dependent on the ideological attack on the Jewish nation, carried through anti-Zionism and Israel-bashing at the UN, the media, and by now deeply entrenched in Western society. But so is the reverse: One can not accuse the Jewish state of crimes against humanity if Hamas does not attack.
Herein lies the predictable cycle of violence that has been going on for years: Hamas attacks Israel through rockets, bombs, shooting, and now kidnapping and rape; Israel retaliates against Hamas; and that retaliation fuels the ideological assault on the Jewish nation in the UN and the media through Israel-bashing and anti-Zionism. Such ideological attacks, then give Hamas the assurance that it can launch another attack – more terrorism, more Oct. 7s.
The way to disrupt this cycle of violence is not by telling Israel to stop defending itself, as suggested not just by the UN, journalists, and pro-Hamas demonstrators on college campuses, but shockingly also by 13 of 15 countries on the UN Security Council.
The only way to disrupt this cycle of violence is by countering the root cause of the ideological assault on the Jewish nation: anti-Zionism.
Ludicrously, there is a broadly accepted zero tolerance for traditional antisemitism (the existential threat to Judaism of the 20th century), with ample tolerance for anti-Zionism (the existential threat to Judaism in the 21st century).
As discussed in this column and in the special October 22, 2022, Magazine, Is Zionism becoming the anchor of Judaism?, a broad recognition that Judaism has transformed and Zionism has become its organizing principle would go a long way toward countering our era’s existential threat to Judaism – anti-Zionism.
Hanukkah marks the miraculous survival of Judaism, sustaining the Greeks’ dual assault: ideological and physical. But Hanukkah’s essence is not just about noting a historic event – it is a template to our life today.
Let us hope that, like then, God will give the Jewish nation the wisdom and fortitude to sustain both the physical assault led by Hamas and the ideological assault led by Israel-bashers and anti-Zionists.
The writer is author of Judaism 3.0: Judaism’s Transformation to Zionism (Judaism-Zionism.com) and chairman of the Judaism 3.0 think tank. For his geopolitical articles: EuropeAndJerusalem.com