Członek islamskiej fundacji Waqf sprząta teren przed Kopułą na Skale w kompleksie Al-Aksa w Jerozolimie, 13 września 2026 r. (Fot. REUTERS/Sinan Abu Mayzer)

Izrael: Partie arabskie wykluczone z wyborów. Sprawą zajmie się Sąd Najwyższy

Marta Urzędowska

Centralna komisja wyborcza w Izraelu zakazała najważniejszym partiom arabskim udziału w październikowych wyborach parlamentarnych. Jeśli faktycznie zostaną wykluczone, może to poważnie wpłynąć na wynik wyborów.

Izraelska centralna komisja wyborcza, która wykluczyła wiodące partie arabskie z zaplanowanych na 27 października wyborów parlamentarnych, składa się głównie z prawicowych parlamentarzystów (w Izraelu skład komisji odzwierciedla rozkład sił w parlamencie). 

O wykluczenie partii arabskich wnioskował Likud i skrajna prawica 

Chodzi m.in. o Zjednoczoną Listę Arabską, znaną powszechnie jako Ra’am, kierowaną przez Mansura Abbasa, oraz Wspólną Listę, czyli koalicję trzech partii arabskich – Hadasz, Balad i Taal. Komisja zagłosowała też dodatkowo za wykluczeniem dwóch indywidualnych posłów – Ofera Cassifa z partii Hadasz i lidera partii Balad – Samiego Abu Szehadeha.

A fraudulent ‘Free Palestine’ activist embodies a lying hateful cause

Jonathan S. Tobin 

An anti-Israel protest on University Avenue in Toronto, Nov. 4, 2023. Credit: Can Pac Swire via Wikimedia Commons.

We live in an era in which fashionable opinion holds it to be an unquestioned truth that biological gender must be considered fluid and changeable, but racial and ethnic identity is not. That’s more a function of ideology than science. Yet the ideas that are the foundation of these complicated and sometimes illogical notions are a formula for a social architecture that prizes one thing above all: victim status.

That’s the best way to understand the peculiar phenomenon of individuals who choose to adopt the identity of a group other than the one they were born into, so as to acquire the much-prized modern privilege that goes with victimhood.

The most famous of these was Rachel Dolezal, a white woman of European heritage who masqueraded as an African American, taught African-American studies on the college level and even was chosen as the president of the Spokane, Kansas chapter of the NAACP before her fraud was exposed in 2015.

Another, less celebrated, racial impersonator was Jessica Krug, a radical ideologue who was a tenured professor of history at George Washington University. She pretended to be a black and Hispanic woman from “El Barrio” in New York City’s Bronx, but was really a middle-class, white, Jewish woman who grew up in suburban Kansas City and attended a day school.

A Jew who became ‘Philadelphia’s Leading Antisemite’

And now there’s a new addition to this bizarre list of racial impersonators: Hannah Gann.

Gann is a Philadelphia high-school teacher who claims, at times, to be of Palestinian and Tunisian heritage and sometimes also to be black. In this guise, she became a leading local advocate for the anti-Israel cause, organizing an event at public schools alleging that the Jewish state was committing “scholasticide” against Palestinians and speaking up as a member of the “Philly Palestine Coalition” and “Parents for Palestine.”

She gained local notoriety for her efforts on behalf of a colleague and longtime friend, Keziah Ridgeway, who was suspended for making threats against Jewish parents who complained about her inserting anti-Israel propaganda into the classroom.

As the Canary Mission website noted on a page devoted to her activities, Gann has celebrated Hamas terrorism, glorified violence and spread hatred of Israel, America and the police on her now-deleted Instagram page. She was a participant at a December 2023 “Flood Philly for Palestine” rally (a reference to the Hamas name for the Oct. 7 attacks that they dubbed the “Al Aqsa flood”), at which she not only praised the mass slaughter of Jews and joined in chants calling for Jewish genocide and terrorism against Jews, but also demonstrated against a Jewish-owned restaurant in the city.

So prominent was she in the effort to demonize the Jewish state and its Jewish supporters, that the Accuracy in Media group, once parked a mobile billboard outside her school calling her “Philadelphia’s Leading Antisemite.”

But, like Dolezal and Krug, Gann was a con artist, not a “person of color” or a Palestinian. She was, in fact—as she subsequently admitted in a groveling on-line apology—“a white woman of significant privilege and wealth.”

And if that was not enough to outrage her former allies, it turns out that she’s also Jewish with family living in Israel.

As with Dolezal and Krug, Gann’s deceptions, which might have included financial fraud, are being angrily denounced as a form of “black face” and for damaging the “pro-Palestine” movement and harming the black students she taught.

The lure of victimhood

The appeal of victimhood is rooted in woke notions that see the world divided into two eternally warring and impermeable classes of persons. On the one side are people of color who are always victims and always in the right no matter what they do. On the other are the white oppressors who are always in the wrong, regardless of their conduct or the context of events.

The toxic ideologues of critical race theory, intersectionality and settler-colonialism have adopted this skewed way of looking at the world and indoctrinated a generation of Americans to view everything through the lens of racial conflict. Believers in this secular religion not only dismiss the enormous progress made toward racial equality made in the United States over the last 70 years. Its supporters also actively oppose the vision of a color-blind society articulated by Martin Luther King Jr., who famously said he had a dream “that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

In a society where such terrible and destructive ideas are treated as universal truth, by the lights of this belief system, some find themselves locked into an identity that marks them as permanent villains. While the majority seeks atonement for its “whiteness” and “privilege” by activism aimed at bringing down a falsely perceived oppressor class, others, like Dolezal, Krug and Gann, go further and adopt the identity of one of the oppressed, thus transforming into an exotic, fashionable persona with real privilege in the world of leftist ideology.

But what makes Gann’s masquerade particularly objectionable is that while she and the “pro-Palestine” crowd pose as virtuous victims, their cause itself is a fraud and one that actively engages in hatred of their own people.

While such left-wing ideologies and the woke catechism of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in which they are based are bad for everyone, they also take particular aim at Israel and Jews, whom they falsely label as part of the “white” oppressor class. Because this belief system venerates victimhood and despises success, the Jews—the most persecuted group in world history, to the frustration of many liberals longing to be counted among the permanently oppressed—must always be redefined as victimizers rather than victims of hate.

According to this inversion of reality, the Jews are denied the right to live in Israel, the country in which they are indigenous. And Zionism, their national-liberation movement, is smeared as a form of unique evil whose overthrow is believed to be linked to the salvation of the whole world. Instead of helping Palestinians, as they claim to be doing, those who cheer on this madness are locking them into a permanent state of futile warfare and misery.

Far from a language of genuine liberation, the woke rhetoric about Israel and Zionists that Gann and her former friends spew, comes straight out of a script written by Soviet propagandists in the 1960s and ‘70s. Its purpose is the overthrow of Western civilization and American liberty and its replacement by Marxist tyranny, not freedom for the oppressed.

Gann deserves the opprobrium she’s getting for her pathetic play-acting. As with Dolezal and Krug, that involved trying to appear more dark-skinned with the aid of makeup and a fake tan. It also included, as a former classmate of Gann’s at the University of Pennsylvania who knew her before she started to pretend to be a Palestinian, told The Philadelphia Inquirer, not merely changing her appearance but often speaking in a dialect or form of slang that the politically correct now refer to as “African-American Vernacular English.”

A catalogue of lies

Gann said in her apology, “The fact that I lied about who I was does not mean anyone else who speaks up for Palestine is lying.”

But, of course, that’s exactly the point. The entire rhetoric of “Free Palestine” is a catalogue of lies.

Indeed, the rewriting of the history of ancient Israel and the modern state, as well as the repeated Palestinian-Arab rejections of any peace offer that does not involve the expulsion of Jews from their homeland, is essential to the movement’s cause. From the fabricated statistics about Palestinian casualties in the post-Oct. 7 war they started, to their denials of the atrocities, including mass murder, torture and rape committed that day by the Palestinians (which were filmed on Go-Pro cameras and posted on the social-media accounts of some of the victims to cause even more pain to their relatives and friends), to their denigration of the suffering of the hundreds who were kidnapped on that Jewish holiday, “pro-Palestine” discourse aims not merely to deny reality, but to invert it.

Above all, the dialectic of Palestinianism aims at stripping Jews of rights and falsely portraying them as criminal monsters and modern-day Nazis, while glorifying an Islamist movement whose sole purpose is Jewish genocide and destruction of the one Jewish state on the planet. And in order to accomplish this, they have, with the aid of a biased media, spread blood libels about the Jews committing “genocide” and their democratic nation being an “apartheid state.”

While few go as far as pretending to be Palestinian, the anti-Israel movement nevertheless welcomes those who want to participate in the struggle of the alleged victims. As we’ve seen on American college campuses and in the streets of the country’s cities, those who adopt their lies and target Jews, as Gann and her friends did, have been indoctrinated to think of themselves as righteous activists, not purveyors of hate. In so doing, they acquire a vicarious sort of victimhood that gives them a higher status in the culture of the left, even if they still remain white and therefore intrinsically bad.

Among them are Jews, such as the members of Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow, which traffic in other antisemitic blood libels, such as the preposterous accusation that Israel trains American police and first responders to murder African Americans.

Seen in this context, it’s easy to see that Gann’s desperate attempt to escape her “whiteness” and Jewish identity in order to be a member of the ironically more privileged victim class, didn’t just lead to lies about her origins. The identity she chose was itself based on a web of deception, concocted by ideologues and spread by those, like Gann, whose idea of education is shoving propaganda down the throats of students—not sharing the treasure of Western thought and ideals.

Those who joined Gann in the chants for genocide and terror against the Jews may not have transgressed the racial taboo of cultural and racial appropriation that the left despises. They may fool themselves into believing that she betrayed their cause with her lies.

But with their cosplaying of Palestinian terrorists in their costumes of keffiyehs and masks, and their recitations of Soviet and Hamas propaganda aimed at promoting antisemitism, the difference between their frauds and hers is not as great as they think.

Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of the Jewish News Syndicate, a senior contributor for The Federalist, a columnist for Newsweek and a contributor to many other publications. He covers the American political scene, foreign policy, the U.S.-Israel relationship, Middle East diplomacy, the Jewish world and the arts. He hosts the JNS “Think Twice” podcast, both the weekly video program and the “Jonathan Tobin Daily” program, which are available on all major audio platforms and YouTube. Previously, he was executive editor, then senior online editor and chief political blogger, for Commentary magazine. Before that, he was editor-in-chief of The Jewish Exponent in Philadelphia and editor of the Connecticut Jewish Ledger. He has won more than 60 awards for commentary, art criticism and other writing. He appears regularly on television, commenting on politics and foreign policy. Born in New York City, he studied history at Columbia University.

Gal Gadot’s Genesis Prize Becomes $3 Million Donation to Help Israeli Trauma, Mental Health Care

Shiryn Ghermezian

Gal Gadot at the 82nd Annual Golden Globe Awards at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, California on Sunday, Jan. 5, 2025. Photo: Dan MacMedan-USA TODAY via Reuters Connect

Trudne do zrozumienia dziś i nieznane jutro

Andrzej Koraszewski

W ubiegłą niedzielę byłem na ceremonii chrztu. Stanąłem w kościele przy drzwiach, żeby swoją obcością nie przeszkadzać wiernym w modlitwie. Długa msza, w którą wpleciony był chrzest, uroczyste przyjęcie nowego członka wspólnoty. Ciekawe kazanie o miłości, gniewie i przebaczeniu. Zastanawiałem się, kto słucha tego kazania naprawdę uważnie. Organista fałszował, śpiewając ochrypłym głosem. Stałem w cieniu w zadumie nad tym, co poszło nie tak z sekularyzacją, która miała być drogą do racjonalizmu, a stała się ścieżką do świeckich kultów zdobionych kefią. Zastanawiałem się, kim będzie przyjmowane do wspólnoty niemowlę. Jeśli wszystko dobrze pójdzie, zobaczy koniec tego stulecia i solidny kawałek następnego wieku.

Z oddali słyszałem pytanie do rodziców: „Czy przyrzekacie wychować…” i ich zdecydowaną odpowiedź: „Przyrzekamy”. Rytualny obrzęd ciągłości tradycji. Moje myśli uciekły do wielkich konfliktów, które rzucają głęboki cień na życie zwykłych ludzi zajętych swoimi codziennymi troskami.

Przyjaciel spisał niedawno do szuflady swoje mroczne przewidywania, jak będzie wyglądał świat za sto lat. Podzielił się nimi ze mną w prywatnym liście. Mroczny obraz świata, w którym Polska jest jedną z nielicznych oaz jeszcze niepodbitych przez islam. Oczywiście natychmiast przypomniał mi się sojusz Stalina z Hitlerem i późniejszy atak nazistów na komunistycznego sojusznika. Nazistowska barbaria runęła, zwyciężyła barbaria komunistyczna. Demokracja ocalała na długo, murszejąc powoli. Zimna wojna nie była zimna, umierały miliony. Byliśmy coraz bogatsi, coraz mniej pobożni, co nie znaczy, że bardziej racjonalni lub bardziej moralni. Mój pierwszy opublikowany w gazecie wiersz zaczynał się od słów „Drzewa na nasze trumny nie rosną nigdzie…”. Dożyłem późnej starości pod atomowym parasolem, czytając o koszmarach na odległych frontach. Japoński inżynier mówił mi z uśmiechem, jak wiele Japończycy zawdzięczają tym dwóm atomowym bombom: „Złamały naszego ducha nacjonalizmu, odzyskaliśmy człowieczeństwo”. Dla nas atomowy parasol był narzędziem strachu przed totalnym zniszczeniem. Czechow pisał, że strzelba wisząca na ścianie w pierwszym akcie musi wystrzelić w trzecim. Czy to już jest trzeci akt?

Wierni wstawali, klękali i siadali, reagując zgodnie na słowa kapłana, freski na plafonie przypominały biblijne sceny i to, że to, czego nie wiemy, jest zawsze większe od tego, co znamy.

Co zobaczy dziecko chrzczone we wrześniu 2026 roku? W jakim świecie ten człowiek będzie dożywał starości?

Ja się tego nie dowiem, mogę tylko zgadywać, tworzyć scenariusze, mając właściwie gwarancję, że wszystko będzie inaczej. Amerykański publicysta z chińskim nazwiskiem zastanawia się, czy trzecia wojna światowa już się zaczęła. Za lokalnymi konfliktami kryją się potęgi marzące o podbiciu świata.

Chang pisze, że Chiny są znacznie groźniejsze, niż kiedykolwiek był Związek Radziecki. Tu akurat nie ma żadnych wątpliwości. Muzułmańscy fanatycy marzą o podboju świata przez islam, dla chińskich komunistów to nóż gładko wchodzący w miękkie podbrzusze demokracji, z religijnymi pomocnikami będzie można rozprawić się później.

Daj małpie ideę, a będzie mordować z poczuciem wzniosłości. Myśleliśmy, że kiedy człowiek porzuci religijne bajki, nastanie królestwo rozumu. Rozkoszna bzdura. Budowanie królestwa bożego na ziemi prowadziło do wielkich zbrodni, do jeszcze większych zbrodni poprowadziły bandy filozofów centralnie planujących powszechne braterstwo.

Organista fałszował, wierni dostali chleb w opłatku, ksiądz wypił wino. Skończyła się msza, pojechaliśmy na obiad. Było sympatycznie i miło, pstrykał aparat fotograficzny z fleszem, więc będą zdjęcia w rodzinnym albumie (to akurat nie jest pewne, bo teraz wystarczy, że są w telefonie).

Pozując do zdjęcia, uniosłem małego człowieka w górę. Patrzyła na mnie uśmiechnięta buzia. Wracałem, jadąc szosą przez spokojne wsie, próbując nie myśleć, co będzie, w oparciu o to, co widzimy dziś. Jak każdy pesymista uwielbiam być w błędzie. Przyszłość jest niewiadomą, moje życie się kończy we wsi spokojnej, nie zawsze wesołej.

Confronting Jew-haters is more important than worrying about cancel culture

Jonathan S. Tobin

Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots, walks the field before the game between the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots at Lumen Field in Seattle, Sept. 9, 2026. Photo by Jane Gershovich/Getty Images.

According to some free-speech advocates, the Jews are making a big mistake. By complaining about rap artist Macklemore using a concert to promote the demonization of Israel, they are making him into a martyr or engaging in cancel culture that always backfires.

They’re not wrong about one thing. Up until last week, Macklemore, a 43-year-old performer whose real name is Benjamin Hammond Haggerty, was not anyone who was thought of as a music superstar. The incident that set off the current controversy happened while he was serving as a warm-up act for another much more widely known musician, English pop star Ed Sheeran.

But now that some Jews in the audience at a concert at MetLife Stadium in northern New Jersey near New York City complained about the anti-Israel propaganda they were subjected to while waiting to hear the softer-edged, ballad-like songs of Sheeran, Macklemore is getting his 15 minutes.

‘Free Palestine’ martyr?

Macklemore’s publicized struggle with alcohol and drug addiction was hardly unique in his sphere. He was briefly on the radar of the Jewish world in 2014 for wearing a costume on stage in which he posed as an antisemitic Jewish stereotype with a huge nose. But after a minimalist apology for that appalling behavior, his career continued to flourish. He was even featured in a weekly address from the White House in 2016 with then-President Barack Obama, when he spoke about the dangers of addiction.

But now that he has been essentially kicked off Sheeran’s current tour, which appears at large venues such as NFL stadiums and appeals to mainstream audiences, he’s become a very big deal.

Even those of us who don’t listen to rap music now know his name and his views. His left-wing political activism and fashionable hate-mongering about Israel, which is spun as merely “pro-Palestinian,” are now discussed throughout mainstream media. And to those who applaud his use of a pop-music concert not merely to proclaim his support for “Free Palestine” but to spread blood libels about Israel committing “genocide” and being an “apartheid” state, he has become something of an anti-Israel hero.

The person who is primarily responsible for this is none other than Jewish philanthropist Robert Kraft, owner of the National Football League’s New England Patriots.

Kraft takes a stand

Kraft has become the object of scorn among the chattering classes for having the temerity to say Macklemore wasn’t going to be allowed to use Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass., which he also owns, to perform the same stunts he did at the Meadowlands. As The Athletic reported, Macklemore claims that Sheeran told him Kraft had organized other stadium owners to join him in an ultimatum to the singer in which he was told that if he retained the rapper, he would not be allowed to play in their venues either. Without those stadiums, which can accommodate far more ticket-buyers than smaller arenas, the tour would have been essentially derailed.

In response to this, some of the other warm-up acts for Sheeran have pulled out of the tour. The American singer Finneas O’Connell, along with the singer-songwriters Aaron Rowe and Lukas Graham, and the traditional Irish group Beoga, all announced their withdrawals on social media. Each cited their belief that Kraft’s actions undermined free speech and their support for “Palestine.”

Rowe said that “as Irish people, we know all too well about genocide, forced famine and violent occupation. I cannot stand by and allow billionaires to use their position of power to silence the rightful voices of those who speak up against Israeli genocide and who highlight the savage murder of children.”

But even those who don’t, as Rowe did, echo Hamas propaganda are slamming Kraft. According to Greg Lukianoff of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), Kraft was within his rights to say that Macklemore or anyone else couldn’t use his stadium to voice opinions he didn’t like. But he told CNN that doing so helps foster a culture in which free speech can’t flourish.

Lukianoff was a stern critic of left-wing cancel culture that resulted in the de-platforming of conservatives during the heyday of the Black Lives Matter movement. But since the start of the surge of antisemitism that followed the Hamas-led Palestinian Arab terror attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, he’s used the same argument to speak up in defense of pro-Hamas mobs on college campuses, even when Jews are targeted by them. Though that sounds as if he’s being consistent, it’s not, and he’s wrong. During the height of BLM cancel culture, normative defense of Western civilization was unfairly denounced as racism. That is not the same thing as a demand to treat antisemitic tropes and lies as reasonable arguments that deserve a fair hearing.

The problem with Kraft’s critics is that the framing of this controversy as a “free speech” debate ignores both the context and the content of what Macklemore and others are doing. Whether or not the rapper ultimately profits from getting kicked off Sheeran’s tour (Abdullah Hammoud, the pro-Hamas mayor of Dearborn, Mich., has invited him to perform in his Arab/Muslim majority city) or if he and others who share his views feel they are being oppressed by what they consider wealthy “pro-genocide” Jews, the real issue at play here is something very different.

Tolerate hate speech?

At stake in this discussion is a crucial question. Should Jews, whether rich and famous like Kraft or just ordinary people who buy tickets to pop concerts, as well as the overwhelming majority of all Americans who oppose antisemitism, be asked to acquiesce to the proliferation of such hate speech in the public square and do nothing about it?

Contrary to Macklemore’s disingenuous initial “apology” for his act, saying you care about Jews but are just criticizing “genocide” and “apartheid” illustrates the key issue.

What he and the other members of Sheeran’s tour, along with their cheerleaders throughout the media, are doing isn’t “criticizing” the State of Israel or expressing solidarity with the Palestinians. In the wake of his stand, Kraft has bent over backwards to express his support for peace and reconciliation in the Middle East, and even promised to match Sheeran’s donations to humanitarian groups seeking to help the victims of the war that Hamas terrorists started on Oct. 7. He isn’t saying that those who hate Israel have no right to voice their views.

But the notion that he or anyone else be forced to simply tolerate the spread of blood libels about “genocide” and “famines,” or the alleged wanton murder of children by Israel is intolerable. And so is the implication that supporters of the Jewish state, like Kraft, and the majority of American Jews are responsible for these mythical crimes.

In the three years since Oct. 7, Jews have witnessed an unprecedented increase in antisemitic violence, including murderous attacks. They’ve seen college campuses turned into hostile environments for Jewish students and faculty by pro-Hamas groups, and city streets turned into battlegrounds against them.

Just as significant, they’ve seen lies about Israel and the Jews mainstreamed by corporate media outlets that now routinely publish and broadcast the “genocide” blood libels and other big lies. This hasn’t just resulted in making Israel more unpopular but has served to legitimize antisemitic tropes and conspiracy theories.

Under the false cover of concern for Palestinians, which for many of these so-called advocates is just the latest trendy cause, anti-Jewish hate speech has become not merely fashionable on the far left and right. As the sentiments expressed by Sheeran’s colleagues illustrated, they have become commonplace among the chattering classes, the arts and popular culture. The movement that backs the side that actually intends to commit genocide in the Middle East—as the orgy of mass murder, torture, rape and kidnapping on Oct. 7 demonstrated—cosplays as humanitarians rather than hate-mongers.

Israel-bashers aren’t being silenced

In this way, the Jews and their allies are smeared not only as “genocide” supporters, but as oppressing and denying free speech to the supposedly brave people who are spreading these lies.

Macklemore and his pals can spout all the pro-Hamas propaganda in Dearborn or anywhere else that will have them. As the tenor of public discourse in the liberal-dominated media as well as in some right-wing podcasts has shown during the last three years, they don’t lack platforms to spout their mendacious and malicious narratives about Israel’s efforts to defend its people against those who wish to murder them.

Decent people, whether Jewish or non-Jewish, who know that this “Free Palestine” movement is rooted in lies about the century-old Arab and Muslim war to deny the right of self-determination to Jews in their ancient homeland have been asked to treat antisemitic invective as merely something that they should agree to disagree about. Non-Jews like Macklemore and many others much more influential than him have had the chutzpah to tell Jews that they must deny an essential element of their identity and faith—devotion to the land of Israel—if they want to be tolerated in fashionable liberal society.

What this situation has demanded is a resolution on the part of those who oppose this mainstreaming of Jew-hatred to say they won’t tolerate it anymore.

While a well-known backer of Israel, Kraft has been a supporter of some of the most anodyne advocacy against hate, with ads about antisemitism that have annoyed many who think his Blue Square campaign, which has been promoted in Super Bowl ads, is not tough enough and portrayed Jews as weak. But in his comments about Macklemore, he stated nothing more than the truth when he noted that the rapper’s use of his act to spread anti-Israel propaganda, as well as his history of “antisemitic rhetoric and imagery,” is deeply offensive and hurtful to the Jewish community.

Telling Jews to shut up

Had a Ku Klux Klan supporter spouted anti-black rhetoric at a concert at an NFL stadium, no one would criticize the owner of the venue for saying such a person had no place in his venue. Nor would opinion leaders demand that African-Americans should simply not buy a ticket to such a performance. Everyone even tangentially involved would be put on notice to disavow such a stunt or face a storm of opprobrium.

And yet Jews are told to pipe down when supporters of Jewish genocide and the extinction of the one Jewish state on the planet—the goal of the “Free Palestine” movement—as antisemites parade their hate in the public square. Far from the Israel-bashers being silenced, it is the Jews who are being told to shut up.

Kraft’s stand must be the starting point for a new attitude among Jews and their friends about what they’ve been told to put up with. They and the broad majority of all Americans who abhor such bigotry need to make it clear that the only proper response to blood libels about Israel and the Jews is zero tolerance. That must be our standard for public discourse, and anyone who voices these lies or platforms them must be denounced and banished to the fever swamps of the far left or far right, where they belong.

Call it cancel culture if you like. But so long as Jew-hatred, whether under the guise of anti-Zionism or “Free Palestine,” which in practice are indistinguishable, is tolerated as fair commentary or even human-rights advocacy, the plague of antisemitism will gain momentum and continue to spread with terrible consequences for both Jews and America.

Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of the Jewish News Syndicate, a senior contributor for The Federalist, a columnist for Newsweek and a contributor to many other publications. He covers the American political scene, foreign policy, the U.S.-Israel relationship, Middle East diplomacy, the Jewish world and the arts. He hosts the JNS “Think Twice” podcast, both the weekly video program and the “Jonathan Tobin Daily” program, which are available on all major audio platforms and YouTube. Previously, he was executive editor, then senior online editor and chief political blogger, for Commentary magazine. Before that, he was editor-in-chief of The Jewish Exponent in Philadelphia and editor of the Connecticut Jewish Ledger. He has won more than 60 awards for commentary, art criticism and other writing. He appears regularly on television, commenting on politics and foreign policy. Born in New York City, he studied history at Columbia University.