When Jews worldwide sit around the Seder table and retell the 4,000 year old story of the Exodus from slavery to freedom, we have no doubt about the identities of the heroes and villains. Jacob (aka Israel) and his extended family, later to become the 12 tribes, were invited by Joseph and Pharaoh to settle in Egypt to escape the famine, and they prospered.
But then, their descendants were enslaved for over 200 years, and the reigning Pharaoh, concerned that they would join with Egypt’s enemies, ordered the murder of male Israelite children – a form of genocide. When the slaves cried out, God heard and appointed Moses to lead them out of the house of bondage through 10 plagues that devastated the entire Egyptian population.
In the finale, the first-born son in every household died (and among their animals), and only then did Pharaoh fold briefly to allow the slaves to march out, carrying unleavened dough on their backs.
Antisemitic inversions of reality
Today, if these events transpired, the powerful “human rights” industry, led by the UN and the NGO superpowers (Human Rights Watch and Amnesty) would issue lengthy reports, hold press conferences and publish posts on social media platforms condemning Moses and Aaron as war criminals. The International Criminal Court would issue arrest warrants charging the Israelite leaders with genocide and other versions of the blood libel. Campus mobs under the heading of Students for Justice for Pharaoh (SJP), supported by their “progressive” allies, would be vandalizing buildings, intimidating Israelites (now Jews – descendants from the tribe of Judah), and demanding the return of the runaway slaves to their Egyptian taskmaster.
How did this ludicrous inversion of oppressor and oppressed, and of victimizer and victim take place? Who is responsible for erasing, distorting and appropriating the moral principles that distinguish between right and wrong?
And, most importantly, how can the modern theater of the absurd be shut down, and the core foundations of morality, embodied in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, be restored?
TO ANSWER these questions, we begin with the pervasive conspiratorial Jew-hatred anchored in post-Holocaust antisemitism. Its adherents reject any form of Jewish sovereignty in our ancient homeland – the Land of Israel to where the Israelites returned 40 years after leaving Egypt. The essence of today’s “Israel derangement syndrome” – as prominently displayed in the activities of Kenneth Roth, who ran HRW for 30 years, and Agnes Callamard of Amnesty International – is not on “occupation” and settlements that followed the 1967 Six Day War.
Rather, the successful creation of Israel and its survival remains the core “crime.” The 1947 UN Partition Plan (the original two states for two peoples) and the victory of the Jews over the invading Arab armies were spun into nefarious Zionist plots, aided by the imperialist West. As a result, for them, Israelis have no inherent right of self-defense – all military actions, including after the October 7 atrocities, are automatically and cynically defined as war crimes and worse.
In parallel, Palestinian Arabs (aided by UNRWA and the “refugee” industry) are perpetual victims, and any act against the hated Zionists, no matter how brutal, is embraced as “resistance.” In today’s backwards world, the EU, NGO and UN network would denounce the ten plagues as a highly disproportionate use of force, and demand the return of the slaves to their Egyptian owners.
THIS PARTICULAR and obsessive focus on Israel is accompanied by a broader anti-Western, anti-democratic ideology that blames Western colonialism for all of the world’s problems, and automatically assigns victimhood to “the Third World,” Global South, and “people of color.” In this straitjacket of fake history, just as Palestinians are not held accountable for mass murder and barbarism, the same is true for non-Western dictatorships throughout the world.
Other brutal colonial conquests, such Chinese imperialism as the Muslim takeover of much of Africa and Asia are simply erased. For self-appointed high priests of progressive morality, the worst offenders in any conflict are always the Americans and their allies.
This dogma can also be explained as a theme in Christian theology that equates weakness (including victimhood) with morality, and strength with aggressive immorality. Highly distorted interpretations of the laws of war are the direct product of this philosophy. When the human rights propaganda industry is criticized for erasing heinous Palestinian Arab attacks (aggression), the response is to blame Israel, “which relies mainly on force, applied as brutally as deemed necessary.” Moses and Aaron could be accused of the same calumny.
Following this non-Jewish model, the polemicist Peter Beinart published a column in the anti-Israel and antisemitic UK Guardian condemning celebrations of Purim for encouraging “Jewish zealotry,” declaring: “As Jews celebrate Purim, let us end the slaughter in Gaza committed in our name.” In a sharp response, UK Chief Rabbi Mervis berated the false presentation of Purim and the “insidious attempt to cast Jewish history and identity as heartless and vengeful.”
With enough money and PR spin, the plagues and the drowning of Pharaoh’s military force could also be rewritten to falsely portray the Egyptians as victims of crimes against humanity and genocide perpetrated by the Israelites. In an age where history is simply one of many narratives – and the power of political spin machines under the facade of morality can turn heinous terrorists into victims – anything is possible.
The writer is president of NGO Monitor.