War Criminal Netanyahu Deflects With False Charges of Antisemitism

Remember the summer of 2017 in Charlottesville, Virginia. That night in August when white nationalists marched through the campus of the University of Virginia in a rally dubbed Unite the Right carrying torches, with some carrying flags with the Nazi black swastika and some chanting the Nazi slogan “Blood and soil” and, also, “Jews will not replace us.” Manifest antisemitism at its core.

Remember also in October 2018 the mass murder at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh of 11 Jewish worshippers by a lone gunman filled with hatred toward Jews. That was also antisemitism at its core.

Remember also in October 2018 the mass murder at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh of 11 Jewish worshippers by a lone gunman filled with hatred toward Jews. That was also antisemitism at its core.

And centuries before there was when King Edward I ordered the expulsion of all Jews from England in 1290. Then there was the plague in the 14th century, the Black Death, propelling the story that Jews were the culprit by poisoning wells; a story some argue led to the “Medieval Holocaust.” These events are among others through history of Jews being persecuted.

Then there is May of this year when chief prosecutor Karim Khan of the International Criminal Court (ICC) announced he was seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza war. Charges Netanyahu in absolute fashion, and erroneously, characterized as antisemitic in his video statement responding to Khan’s announcement, saying:

Israel is waging a just war against Hamas, a genocidal terrorist organization that perpetrated the worst attack on the Jewish people since the Holocaust... Mr. Khan takes his place among the great antisemites in modern times. He now stands alongside those infamous German judges who donned their robes and upheld laws that denied the Jewish people their most basic rights and enabled the Nazis to perpetrate the worst crime in history.

Quite an accusation in Prime Minister Netanyahu comparing Mr. Khan to enablers of the Holocaust. Quite an accusation given Netanyahu failed to mention Khan was also seeking the arrest of the three principal leaders of Hamas for war crimes and crimes against humanity primarily in the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023.

In interviews in September with BBC’s Nick Robinson and then with Newsweek, prosecutor Karim Khan discussed his actions as a necessary equal application of international law. In his interview with Newsweek, Khan said:

Throughout history, we see that international law has been applied in a haphazard manner. It has not been applied evenly. And we’re seeing simply now vividly the unequal application of the law, particularly because of where we are. The world is connected…that it must be that all life matters equally. And there are certain situations that have developed in which it seems to be that powerful people think it’s a law-free zone, and we have to show that law applies everywhere. It’s not something that you can take it or leave it. It’s not an à la carte menu. You have to accept law in its totality if we’re not going to have a Wild West developing or widening in which you can grab what you want and do what you want to anybody that’s less powerful than you.

Then Mr. Khan added:

And whether they’re the families in the kibbutzim that are mourning the people killed from the seventh of October, or that are so horrendously being kept today… or it’s Palestinians in the West Bank or in Gaza, they have the right, not as a charity, not as a favor to them, but they have a right to be seen by the law.

Now juxtaposition the perspective of equality articulated by Khan in his interview with Newsweek with how Prime Minister Netanyahu ended his speech on September 27 before the United Nations General Assembly. After framing Iran the pivotal enemy in the Middle East, Netanyahu concluded by portraying the U.N. itself as a “swamp of antisemitic bile.” For starters, he said this:

The singling out of the one and only Jewish state continues to be a moral stain on the United Nations. It has made this once-respected institution contemptible in the eyes of decent people everywhere. But for the Palestinians, this U.N. house of darkness is home court. They know that in this swamp of antisemitic bile, there’s an automatic majority willing to demonize the Jewish state for anything. In this anti-Israel flat-Earth society, any false charge, any outlandish allegation can muster a majority.

Then Netanyahu added:

And given the antisemitism at the U.N., it should surprise no one that the prosecutor at the ICC, one of the U.N.’s affiliated organs, is considering issuing arrest warrants against me and Israel’s defense minister, the democratically elected leaders of the democratic state of Israel.

The ICC prosecutor’s rush to judgment… is hard to explain by anything other than pure antisemitism.

Netanyahu’s persistent charge of antisemitism leveled against anyone who criticizes Israel leads to this conclusion: Accusations of antisemitism are just another weapon in Netanyahu’s, if not Israel’s, arsenal.

Netanyahu’s weaponization of accusations of antisemitism is a dangerous double-edged sword. It could weaken the legitimacy of efforts to eliminate demonstrable antisemitism and the bigoted and often violent hatred toward Jewish people. On the other hand, Netanyahu’s weaponization also may legitimate hatred toward Palestinians and toward those, even in the Jewish community, who support equality and self-determination for Palestinians. The latter is Netanyahu’s explicit purpose in his rhetoric; that is, portraying anyone who supports Palestinian equality as antisemitic.

Netanyahu’s weaponization of charges of antisemitism has no relationship to the working definition of antisemitism developed by member states in the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), the United States and Israel among them. This is the definition used by the U.S. State Department.

The IHRA delineated examples of behavior and activities considered antisemitic encompassed in its definition. Targeting Israel only because it represents a Jewish collectively was one. But as IHRA also states, “criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic.”

ICC’s chief prosecutor Khan in his aforementioned interviews plainly states seeking the arrest of both Israel and Hamas leaders for war crimes and crimes against humanity represents equity in application of international law.

Then also, remember the international criticism of apartheid in South Africa. Such rings similar to criticisms of the Middle East version of apartheid in Israel. Similar criticism; not antisemitic.