The Israeli Right’s antisemitism towards the left
JVL Introduction
The term “auto-antisemitism” is, apparently in common usage in Israel to mean self-hating Jews. In ways perhaps similar to Zionists outside Israel, the right wing politicians and commentators in Israel regard “leftists” in their midst as not really belonging, “as foreign to their “self,” as hostile to their “us.” This is so whether it involves Benjamin Netanyahu’s iconic whisper into the ear of Kabbalist Rabbi Yitzhak Kaduri, telling him that the left has forgotten what it means to be Jewish, or whether it is the common practice of labelling leftists as traitors.”. The common thread is that those on the left are seen as not really being part of the community. Of course, this has worsened dramatically since October 7th 2023. (My emphasis LL)
The writer goes further and cites examples when the hatred towards leftists is expressed with language similar to that used by the Nazis about Jews. In a context where antisemitism is definitely rising, the writer is shocked that Israel has not been spared from this, or certainly from elements of this. But if commitment to Israel and all it does is how we are now to define being Jewish, many of us will fall short. This wonderful Wrong Kind of Jew video with Miriam Margolyes, Michael Rosen & Alexei Sayle will, presumably provide more evidence for the Israeli right wing and their supporters.
This article was originally published by Ha'aretz on Sun 7 Jun 2026. Read the original here.
The Antisemitism of the Israeli Right
As someone who writes in Haaretz, I’ve often been accused of auto-antisemitism. But when right-wingers attack leftists in the same way the Nazis talked about the Jews, it’s not seen as self-hatred. To our horror, the global wave of antisemitism has not spared Israel
In the right wing’s battle against the left, no rhetorical device is more beloved than a quote by one of Labor Zionism’s founders Berl Katznelson, in which he asks, “Is there another People on Earth so emotionally twisted that they consider everything their nation does despicable and hateful, while every murder, rape and robbery committed by their enemies fill their hearts with admiration and awe?”
Auto-antisemitism (self-hating Jews) is the most common slur hurled at the “extreme” left. As someone who writes in Haaretz, I have often been accused of auto-antisemitism, as have other writers in Haaretz, and its publisher, Amos Schocken. Lawmaker Ofer Cassif, a Jewish member of the mostly-Arab Hadash party, is also considered to be an auto-antisemite by these accusers.
y contrast, the hatred right-wingers feel toward leftists in Israel is not perceived as self-hatred. When rightists hate leftists, they perceive them as foreign to their “self,” as hostile to their “us.” This is so whether it involves Benjamin Netanyahu’s iconic whisper into the ear of Kabbalist Rabbi Yitzhak Kaduri, telling him that the left has forgotten what it means to be Jewish, or whether it is the common practice of labelling leftists as traitors. Or the new reference, born on October 7th: “are you part of Israel?” implying that the left is not really part of the nation. In the hatred of rightists towards leftists, the latter are seen as foreign and hostile to the collective identity.
In examining the discourse of the hatred toward the left in recent years, one detects that this hatred is mixed with hatred toward Ashkenazi Jews, and that the things attributed to leftists are congruent with what the Nazis said about Jews. Like the right’s hatred of Ashkenazi leftists, Nazi propaganda depicted Jews as a force working from within to corrupt the (German) nation, as rootless cosmopolitans who are disloyal to the nation, promoting universal and liberal values in order to weaken (German) nationality. They were seen as disproportionately controlling elites in the media, in the academic realm, in culture, in banking and in every other center of power, using their power to shape people’s mindset and to impose their values on the majority.
They were also perceived as those responsible for the moral degeneracy and the blurring of the national identity, acting against the national spirit and the true interests of the nation, promoting assimilation instead of a pure national identity. Who said so – Goebbels or Yair Netanyahu
There is definitely a current global wave of antisemitism – but to our horror, it has not spared Israel. Anyone who wishes to understand how European antisemitism operated no longer has to open a history book. It is enough to turn on Channel 14a nd listen to what is said there about left-wing Ashkenazi Jews. The Jews are the same Jews – or their descendants – and the only difference is that this time the nation that is under “threat,” according to the people who hate them, is not the Aryan nation but the Jewish one. We see the insanity here live, on air, in the country of the Jews. It is no wonder that the hatred toward Ashkenazi leftists on social media is often accompanied by a wish from a commenter: Too bad the Nazis didn’t finish the job.
In contrast to the left, with its scathing criticism of the state and the path it is pursuing portrayed by some as an autoimmune antisemitic mutation, you on the right are not “auto” in the least: You are simply run-of-the-mill antisemites. You have become fluent in Nazi language. The Nazis hated the Jews of Europe, and you feel the same hatred toward their descendants in Israel.
While we were wondering if it is legitimate to “compare,” we missed the fact that in the internal Jewish dialogue, in tandem with all the other processes taking place here, the descendants of the persecuted are victims of the very same propaganda, in the Jewish state.
Carolina Landsmann writes that ‘There is definitely a current global wave of antisemitism’. I disagree. To merely assert something without evidence or argumentation throws into doubt the rest of the article.
Who is the Israeli ‘left’ that is referred to in the article? The Zionist left?
Landsmann starts of with a quotation from Berl Katznelson. It is part of what is called the Zionist negation of the diaspora. It is an example of how the differences between Labour and Revisionist were never anything more than tactical.
The reality is that Israel is as Akiva Orr put it the ‘unJewish state’. It is a living embodiment of everything that Jews in their overwhelming majority were opposed to. Today unfortunately, for political and socio-economic reasons major parts of the Jewish diaspora have swung to the Islamophobic right and this has caused what Landmann calls anti-Semitism.
Yes the Israel right talks like Nazis because they are no different ideologically from the Nazis. Except that they are called Jews but could, in another context, have equally been part of the Jim Crow south. The Israeli left that Landsmann talks about is unable to counter them because it too accepts the paradigm that Jews form a nation.
Israeli politics will continue to be Nazified because there is nothing else to counter it. The messianic right will continue to grow in strength because the logic of Zionism is the oppression and ethnic cleansing, leading to genocide of the Palestinians.
What Landsmann calls the Ashkenazi left is the old Labour Zionist left. Yes it sought a certain democratic space for Jews but the logic of settler colonialism and racial purity will always negate that. In short the Israeli left, which cannot break from Zionism, is caught on the horns of a dilemma entirely of its own making.