Danger of antisemitic responses to Israeli-US war collaboration
JVL Introduction
Joel Swanson is worried and rightly so at the fallout from the open declaration that Israeli strategic priorities have shaped the US’s response on Iran.
Just a fifth of Americans supported the bombings when they started. So it is important, he argues to give a clear accounting of why of how we got where we are.
“What is uncomfortable,” says Swanson “is how easily legitimate questions about Israel’s role in stoking this war can slide into conspiracy theories – with social media awash with talk of “puppet masters”, “dual loyalties” and the like.
Swanson is right to insist that Israel’s role warrants serious scrutiny, and that “the lines are not always as easy to maintain as we might like. And it is at times hard to distinguish between legitimate criticism and dangerous tropes”.
If people’s genuine concerns about US foreign policy towards Israel are not answered, antisemitic explanations will all too easily fill the gap.
RK
This article was originally published by the Guardian on Thu 5 Mar 2026. Read the original here.
The US-Israel relationship is finally facing a reckoning. It doesn’t need to slide into antisemitism
Israel’s role in drawing the US into a war on Iran is attracting healthy scrutiny. It’s also creating a permission structure for antisemitism
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Good analysis. FB sends me a lot of pro zionist content and amidst the genocide denial and anti arab racism I think there has been a significant rise in clearly antisemitic responses – stuff about ‘the Austrian painter’ which is disturbing.
But the analysis misses the role played by zionists in trying to equate that ideology with judaism and jews and the way that exacerbates antisemitism.
Saying that the USA and starmer are puppet masters to israel is not antisemitic its fact. America have admitted israel pushed them. My favorite utuber Tyler Oliveira was demonitised after a thousand videos on all kinds of communities thenhe did one. About Lakewood.
The problem with Swanson’s analysis is that she never puts her cards on the table and say what Israel’s relationship with America is. Israel is supported because it is the projection of US power in the region.
Swanson doesn’t put anti-Semitism into perspective. She highlights a few antisemitic attacks whilst barely mentioning Israeli atrocities and the ideology, Zionism, that lies behind them. E.g. the belief that Palestinian children are culpable and killing them is justified because they are the future ‘terrorists’.
Where Swanson goes wrong is in stating that criticism of Israel is creating ‘a permission structure for greater antisemitism.’ What creates a permission structure is Israel’s association of attacks on it with anti-Semitism.
It is Israel and the Zionist lobby which is fuelling anti-Semitism, indeed welcoming it. Look at the way the ADL excused Musk’s Hitler salute as an ‘awkward gesture’
Swanson refers to Tucker Carlson’s platforming of holocaust deniers but fails to mention Trump hosting Nick Fuentes and having Sebastian Gorka in his Administration. Should we welcome Carlson and Greene’s ‘Israel First’ criticism? Yes definitely. Anything that weakens Israel is good.
Israel is a genocidal state. When a majority of Israelis support exterminating Palestinians we should not be too precious about subliminal anti-Semitism.
It is clear that Israel acted as the catalyst for the present war but it couldn’t have done so if they weren’t on the same side.
When Netanyahu said they were going to attack anyway there was nothing to stop Trump telling them that they were on their own and informing the Iranians that if Israel attacked the US was going to sit on the sidelines. They didn’t and that is why it is false to suggest that this is Israel’s war.
I’ve thought in very much the same way. I never got round to writing it down. There is indeed a very muddy border between criticism of what the the Israeli state is doing on the one hand, and why they are doing it on the other hand. It’s a slippery slope when a leftie activist on a demo holds a placard denouncing Israeli state actions at the same time as joining in a demo chorus shout that expresses anti-Semitic ideas. Waving a flag with the Israeli flag on one side, and a Swastica on the other might come into this category. Calling for the death of the State of Israel might too. It was certainly asking for trouble when, in 1948, Israel came into existence but we are where we are.
If, as individual leftie Jewish activists, we come across this, perhaps on a rally, we must be willing to draw attention to it. Because ingrained in the mud is the view, (held by many in the (UK) establishment) that all Jews think the same way, moreover that we all support Israel. And this, as we know leads to anti-Semitic ideas.
For years determined efforts have been put into conflating Zionism with Judaism, with the intention of de-legitimising anti-Zionism. The inevitable effect is to legitimise antisemitism.
It is necessary to be quite clear that there is no connection whatever between condemnation of the state and government of Israel on the one hand and hatred of Jews as Jews on the other. Many influential opinion-formers however are unable to say this as it would amount to a confession that they have been completely wrong up to now.