How To Criticize Israel (Which Frankly Deserves A Lot of Criticism Right Now)

​Without Being An Antisemitic Twatwaffle

[May 2026]

Let's get this out of the way:

I believe the state of Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. I also believe Israel operates as an apartheid state. I am not remotely interested in sanitizing what is happening in order to make people comfortable. Entire neighborhoods have been reduced to rubble. Civilians have been starved, displaced, traumatized, and killed on a horrifying scale. Gaza is a humanitarian catastrophe and the Israeli government under Netanyahu deserves ferocious criticism for it.

• Criticizing Israel is not antisemitic.

• Criticizing Zionism is not inherently antisemitic.

• Anti-Zionism is not inherently antisemitic.

• Supporting Palestinian liberation is not antisemitic.

• Saying “Free Palestine” is not antisemitic.

Those distinctions matter because there are absolutely people who weaponize accusations of antisemitism to shut down legitimate criticism of Israel, and that is real. But another thing that is real is the fact that some people absolutely are laundering antisemitism through “anti-Zionist” rhetoric. Pretending otherwise helps nobody, including Palestinians.

​In other words: it's not that you can't criticize Israel, it's how you do it that makes it antisemitic or not.

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One of the biggest tells is obsession combined with selective moral outrage. Gaza deserves attention. G-d knows it deserves attention (and prayer!). But when somebody can name every major player in the Netanyahu government and the most well-known casualties in Gaza while also knowing absolutely nothing about Sudan, the Uyghurs, Congo, Syria, Myanmar, Ethiopia, or any other humanitarian crisis on Earth, and their social media consists entirely of posting “Zios” and blood libel memes all day long, it is fair to question whether something uglier is mixed in there.

I give somewhat more grace here to Jews and Palestinians specifically because both groups have deeply personal reasons to be emotionally consumed by this conflict. Trauma, grief, fear, anger, family history, identity, religion, and existential anxiety all get tangled up in it. But when random non-Jewish Westerners turn Israel into the singular source of evil in the universe while recycling centuries old antisemitic tropes, I stop believing this is purely about human rights.

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Another problem is painting all Israelis with a broad brush. Israel is a state. Israelis are human beings. Those are not interchangeable concepts. There are Israelis cheering the devastation on, supporting ethnic cleansing, and embracing horrifying ultranationalism. That is true. But there are Israelis protesting the war. Israelis refusing military service. Ex-IDF soldiers who are whistleblowers and are part of the peace movement. Israelis trying to get humanitarian aid into Gaza. Israelis who despise Netanyahu. Israelis who lost loved ones on October 7th and still oppose the destruction of Gaza. 

Human beings are not a hive mind.

Reducing millions of people into one monstrous caricature is exactly the kind of thinking that poisons societies.

The same goes for rhetoric like “death to Israel” or “boom boom Tel Aviv.” I understand rage. I understand why Palestinians and their supporters are furious. But cheering for civilians to die is morally wrong. There is no liberation in becoming emotionally intoxicated by fantasies of massacre. Israeli civilians are not interchangeable with the Israeli state. Children are not military targets. Random concertgoers are not military targets. Elderly people are not military targets.

If your idea of justice involves equivalent or worse atrocities inflicted on civilians, you have lost the plot completely.

That includes celebrating rape, kidnapping, torture, or murder because the victims were Israeli or served in the IDF at some point. Conscription exists in Israel. A huge percentage of Israelis have military backgrounds because the state mandates it. That does not magically erase civilian status forever or make every human being fair game for collective punishment. My half-brother's father was a Vietnam vet because he got drafted. Despite opposing the war himself. He got treated like shit when he came back and it made his already-extant PTSD worse by orders of magnitude. I see this repeating with IDF soldiers. No, I'm not saying the IDF isn't morally accountable. I am not excusing the war crimes (including documented rapes and tortures) committed by some members of the IDF. I am simply saying that not all IDF soldiers have committed rape and torture, and furthermore, you don't solve rape culture with wishing rape on rapists. You don't fight monsters by wishing atrocities on people.

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I have also become increasingly uncomfortable with terms like “Shitrael” or “Pissrael.” When criticism of Israel drifts into language that resembles how Nazis talked about Jews as filth, vermin, contamination, and excrement, alarms start going off in my head. Especially because a lot of the same people using those terms also traffic in open antisemitic conspiracy theories.

Here, context matters. If somebody uses edgy anti-state language consistently toward multiple empires or governments, I react much less defensively. For example, I've been saying "AmeriKKKa" since George W. Bush was in office. I've been around Israelis who have said "fuck Israel" about their own country, just like I've said "fuck America" under Trump.

But when Israel uniquely gets turned into sewage metaphors while Jews are simultaneously being portrayed as parasites controlling the world, there is clearly more happening there than ordinary anti-government rhetoric.

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The use of “Zionist” as a code word for Jews is another gigantic problem. People will insist they are only criticizing Zionists while saying things like “Zionist-controlled media,” “Zionists control the banks,” “Zionists own Hollywood,” or “Zionists manipulate governments.” At that point you are literally just repeating classic antisemitic conspiracy theories with a vocabulary swap.

The mask slips even harder with the word “Zio,” which David Duke popularized specifically as a slur for Jews. A lot of younger activists genuinely do not know the origin of the term. They think it is just shorthand for Zionist. It is not. White supremacists used it because they wanted a compact little sneering insult for Jews while maintaining plausible deniability. So when people throw “Zio” around casually online, what many Jews hear is neo-Nazi language entering mainstream discourse through the back door.

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The same thing applies to the juice box emoji or glasses of juice in contexts involving Jews or Israel. Yes, we know exactly what you are doing. “Juice” meaning “Jews.” Glasses of juice as code for “gas the Jews.” It is transparent moderation evasion. People know they cannot openly post genocidal antisemitic rhetoric on mainstream platforms, so they hide behind meme language and pretend everyone else is paranoid for noticing. We are not stupid.

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Nazi comparisons are another minefield. I understand why people reach for Holocaust imagery when discussing Gaza. I really do. If you believe a genocide is happening (which I do), then naturally your mind goes to the most infamous genocide in modern history. And there is a meaningful difference between saying “this reminds me of dehumanization tactics” or “this resembles genocidal logic” versus casually declaring “the Jews are the new Nazis.”

That latter statement is fucked up for several reasons.

First, it collapses Jews into a moral collective. Not Israel. Not Netanyahu. Not the Israeli government. Jews. It turns an entire ethnic and religious group into the embodiment of evil.

Second, it weaponizes Jewish trauma against Jews themselves. There is something deeply nasty about taking the Holocaust, the systematic industrial extermination of European Jewry, and turning it into a rhetorical club to beat random Jews with. Especially because so many of the people doing this are simultaneously dismissing antisemitism as fake or exaggerated in every other context.

Third, Holocaust comparisons are often historically sloppy in ways that erase actual history. Nazi Germany was a mechanized extermination state operating death camps across Europe with the explicit ideological goal of annihilating Jews everywhere. The Holocaust was not merely “lots of civilians dying in war.” It was a continent-wide project of total eradication. When people reduce Nazism into a vague synonym for “government I hate that is doing evil things,” they degrade historical understanding and waters down the Holocaust.

Another problem with constantly screaming “the new Nazis” is that it actually gives Zionists an escape hatch rhetorically. The second genocide becomes defined exclusively through the imagery of Auschwitz, gas chambers, striped uniforms, and industrialized extermination camps, defenders of the state of Israel can point at Gaza and say “see, it’s not identical, therefore it cannot be genocide.” That is an incredibly dangerous narrowing of what genocide means. Genocide does not have to copy Hitler’s methods beat for beat in order to qualify as genocide. Mass starvation, forced displacement, collective punishment, dehumanizing rhetoric, destruction of civilian infrastructure, and the creation of unlivable conditions, regular bombardment and regular casualties can all form part of genocidal violence. So when people lazily reduce every discussion to “Israelis are Nazis now,” they are not only collapsing Jews into a grotesque collective caricature, they are also accidentally helping hardline Zionists argue that anything short of literal Holocaust reenactment somehow does not count.

​And finally, “the Jews learned nothing from the Holocaust” is a particularly disgusting phrase because it frames the Holocaust as some kind of moral lesson Jews were supposed to pass in order to earn continued sympathy. Human beings do not become morally perfect because they survived genocide. Trauma does not grant collective sainthood. Jews are people, not sacred morality mascots. Some Jews are compassionate. Some are cruel. Some are anti-war. Some are ultranationalists. That is how humanity works. Jews are humans. Some of us are great and some of us suck ass, just like any group of people. Regardless, genocide should never be framed as some sort of moral lesson.

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Another thing that crosses the line is holding diaspora Jews collectively responsible for Israel’s actions. People will demand that random Jews publicly denounce Israel before being treated as morally acceptable human beings. Jewish bakery owners in Chicago get interrogated about Gaza. Jewish college students get cornered and pressured into ideological confessions. Synagogues get vandalized or bomb threats or firebombed or shot up even when they have nothing to do with Israeli policy.

Nobody walks up to random Chinese-Americans demanding denunciations of the CCP before allowing them social legitimacy. Nobody corners random Russian-Americans demanding they answer for Putin before participating in public life. People absolutely do this to Jews.

And there is a double bind involved. If Jews criticize Israel loudly enough, they become “good Jews.” (And then some people in the American Jewish community accuse them of being pick-mes. Ask me how I know.) If they hesitate, feel conflicted, or simply do not want to perform their politics publicly on command, suddenly they are treated as morally suspicious. That is not solidarity. That is ideological hostage-taking.

Related to this is the demand for purity tests specifically from Jews. Many activist spaces have developed a bizarre comfort level with interrogating Jews about Zionism before allowing them entry into social legitimacy. Meanwhile those same spaces would never dream of demanding every Muslim denounce every Islamist terror group or demanding every Asian person explain their position on China before being welcomed.

That asymmetry should bother people.

You can also criticize Israel without erasing Jewish history or indigeneity. Jews are not fictional space aliens who materialized in Europe and randomly decided to colonize the Middle East for fun. Jewish civilization emerged in the Levant. Jewish religious identity, language, holidays, rituals, and sacred texts are deeply tied to that land.

Acknowledging that does not erase Palestinian history or justify apartheid and mass killing.

At the same time, some anti-Zionist rhetoric drifts into ugly territory where Jews become framed as fundamentally fake, alien, or fraudulent. You start seeing Khazar conspiracy theories. Claims that Ashkenazi Jews are “just Europeans.” Erasure of Mizrahi and Sephardi Jews entirely. Pretending Arabic-speaking Jewish communities across the Middle East never existed. Pretending Jews have no authentic connection to Jerusalem despite thousands of years of documented religious continuity.

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I have also seen an alarming normalization of celebrating civilian deaths because “settlers deserve it.” Again, there are legitimate conversations to be had about illegal settlements and settler violence in the West Bank. Some settlers absolutely do terrorize Palestinians and steal land under military protection.

But language has expanded so recklessly that “settler” increasingly just means “Israeli civilian.” Children are called settlers. Babies are called settlers. Random people at a music festival are called settlers. At that point the term becomes a moral laundering mechanism to rationalize atrocities against civilians.

That should horrify people.

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Conspiracy-brained anti-Zionism is another massive red flag. The second somebody starts ranting about Rothschilds, “globalists,” media control, banking cabals, dual loyalty, Hollywood manipulation, or shadowy Jewish influence networks, we are no longer talking about ordinary criticism of Israeli policy. We are talking about antisemitism wearing a keffiyeh as camouflage.

And frankly, some people are not fooling anyone.

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The harassment of random Jews online has also become deranged. I support the statement “Free Palestine.” I oppose what Israel is doing in Gaza. But I have personally experienced people barging into completely unrelated spaces because they saw a Jewish name, Hebrew words, or Jewish symbolism and decided "Jew = against Palestine" and that harassment was justified. Back in 2023 and early 2024, I had people show up in the comments of completely unrelated fanfiction screaming “Free Palestine” at me as though my existence as a Jew automatically made me personally responsible for Gaza. It got so obnoxious that I permanently disabled comments on AO3 (before I left the site altogether).

That behavior does not help Palestinians. It just teaches Jews that visibly existing online while Jewish makes you a target.

The same goes for vandalizing synagogues or attacking Jewish students. Diaspora Jews are not extensions of the Israeli state. Jewish schools are not military installations. Synagogues are not embassies. Terrorizing random Jews because you are angry at Israel is antisemitism. Full stop.

Ripping down hostage posters also became disgusting performance art during the early months after October 7th. I understand that some people believed the posters were being used propagandistically. Fine. But the absolute eagerness some people displayed in treating kidnapped civilians as fake, deserving, or irrelevant was chilling. Human empathy seemed to vanish the second the victims were Israeli Jews.

There is also a weird tendency to assume every Hebrew word or Jewish symbol is inherently Zionist propaganda. Hebrew predates the modern state of Israel by thousands of years. The Star of David is not a Netanyahu logo. The Star of David was around long before the formation of the state of Israel. Jewish religious symbols belong to Jews broadly, not specifically to the Israeli government.

I cover my head in public. I openly wear a Star of David necklace. If someone asks me if I'm Jewish, I answer honestly with "yes". (This happens semi-regularly, the most recent as of May 2026 was one of my neighbors.) I am also not Orthodox and not a Zionist. Yet there are people who see visible Jewishness and immediately decide “Zionist enemy.” That is profoundly dangerous. I know I take my life into my hands every time I leave the house now, all because some fuckwits have decided we're all responsible for what's happening in Gaza and that somehow we solve the problem of innocent people being murdered by... murdering more innocent people.

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Another ugly pattern is dismissing any mention of antisemitism as “playing the antisemitism card.” Some people have become so convinced that accusations of antisemitism are always cynical deflections that they now reflexively deny antisemitism even when it is blatant. If somebody spray-paints swastikas on a synagogue after an Israeli bombing campaign, yes, that is antisemitism. If visibly Jewish people are being harassed in the street because they “look Zionist,” yes, that is antisemitism.

Recognizing antisemitism does not erase Palestinian suffering. Human beings are capable of holding more than one moral reality in their heads simultaneously.

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​I am also deeply disturbed by the romanticization of Hamas in some activist circles. Hamas is not a queer liberation organization. Hamas is not a feminist movement. Hamas is not some cuddly anti-colonial resistance collective unfairly misunderstood by the West. Hamas is an Islamist militant organization with explicitly antisemitic rhetoric and a long history of targeting civilians.

You can understand why Hamas emerged historically without turning them into saints. You can acknowledge Palestinian desperation and rage without pretending antisemitic jihadism magically becomes progressive when directed at Jews.

Calling Hamas “freedom fighters” while ignoring or excusing explicit antisemitic rhetoric coming from their movement is morally unserious.

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People also constantly weaponize the phrase “G-d’s chosen people” while having absolutely no idea what Jews even mean by it. They interpret it through a Christian supremacist lens where “chosen” means “favorite,” “racially superior,” or “entitled to dominate others,” then project that interpretation back onto Jews as proof we all secretly believe we deserve Palestine by divine mandate. In actual Judaism, chosenness traditionally refers to covenant, obligations, responsibilities, and a particular relationship with G-d and Torah. It is not “we are genetically superior ubermenschen and therefore can do whatever we want.” Plenty of Jews, including religious Jews, explicitly oppose what Israel is doing to Palestinians. Plenty of Jews do not believe there is any spiritual justification whatsoever for ethnic cleansing or apartheid. So when people twist an ancient, complicated theological concept into “the Jews think G-d gave them permission to kill Arabs,” they are not engaging seriously with Judaism. They are recycling hostile caricatures.

I have even seen people confidently claim Judaism teaches that Jews are trying to trigger an apocalyptic final war because they vaguely absorbed Christian evangelical end-times theology from pop culture and projected it onto us. No, that is not in the Hebrew Bible. No, Judaism does not center itself around the Book of Revelation because Revelation is part of the Christian New Testament, not Jewish scripture. A huge amount of modern apocalyptic obsession surrounding Israel actually comes from Christian Zionism and evangelical eschatology, where some Christians literally believe Jewish control of the region is necessary to trigger the Second Coming. Jews did not invent that theology. Your average Jew thinks that theology is bullshit, actually. So when people start lecturing Jews about what “your religion believes” while clearly knowing fuck-all about Judaism itself, that absolutely can slide into antisemitism. If you are going to make sweeping claims about an ethnoreligious group’s theology, maybe spend five minutes learning what that group actually believes first.

A lot of people also think Jews are “just a religion,” which creates another layer of confusion and hostility. Then the same people will sneer “religion is the problem” or compare Jewish identity to being a member of a voluntary ideological club you can simply opt out of whenever convenient. Judaism is a religion, yes. But Jews are also a people. Jewish identity includes ethnicity, ancestry, culture, language, shared history, traditions, collective memory, and kinship. Some Jews are deeply religious. Some are atheists. Some are secular. Some are culturally Jewish but not observant. They are still Jews.

And conversion to Judaism is not really analogous to casually switching denominations. It is closer to naturalization or adoption into a people and its culture. Converts become part of the Jewish peoplehood itself.

​That is why antisemitism does not magically stop affecting secular Jews or atheist Jews or converts. Bigots generally do not care whether the Jew they hate keeps kosher, believes in G-d, goes to synagogue, or has read a page of Talmud in their life. They see Jews as an ethnic collective. Which is exactly why reducing Jewishness to “just a religion” often leads people into profoundly ignorant takes about antisemitism and Jewish identity.

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And finally, I need to talk about the pig imagery because this one drives me insane. Roger Waters putting the Star of David on a pig was antisemitic. Netanyahu depicted as a pig is antisemitic. I do not care how much you hate Netanyahu. I hate Netanyahu too. I think he is a catastrophic leader and a chillul Hashem.

But pigs have specific religious and ethnic connotations for Jews and Muslims. People understand immediately why slapping Islamic symbols onto pigs would be Islamophobic. Somehow that understanding evaporates when Jews are involved.

If you want to mock the shit out of Netanyahu (and let's be real, he deserves it), there are endless options. Make him a jackass. Put him in a creepy clown costume. Make jokes about Small Dick Energy. Make art of him making out with Trump. Whatever. But pig imagery tied specifically to Jewish symbolism carries baggage whether people want to admit it or not.

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​​At the end of the day, criticizing Israel ethically requires remembering that Jews are human beings. Palestinians are human beings too. You do not have to erase one group’s humanity in order to defend the other. You do not have to recycle centuries old antisemitic conspiracies in order to condemn war crimes. You do not have to become emotionally addicted to fantasies of revenge against civilians. You do not have to interrogate every random Jew you meet like they are an ambassador for Netanyahu.

And frankly, if your activism keeps somehow circling back to swastikas, banking conspiracies, “Zios,” dehumanization, ethnic guilt, harassment of diaspora Jews, or cheering dead civilians, maybe you should stop pretending antisemitism is impossible in pro-Palestine spaces.

Because it is there.

Just as Islamophobia exists in pro-Israel spaces.

Just as ultranationalism exists in Israeli politics.

Just as antisemitism exists on the far right, the far left, and among conspiracy movements.

None of these realities cancel each other out.

The suffering of Palestinians is real. The rise in antisemitism is also real. Mature moral thinking requires the ability to confront both truths honestly instead of flattening everything into tribal propaganda.

​And if your politics require you to stop seeing entire categories of human beings as people, your politics are already rotting from the inside.