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Demonstrators leave a public square in Paris, France, after police fired tear gas to break up a pro-Palestine rally there on Oct. 12. That day, France had banned all protests in support of Palestine, saying that antisemitic crime was on the rise in France in the wake of Hamas’ attack on Israel. (AP/Yonhap)

In Israel, stones are thrown at the houses of those who express solidarity with Palestine. The police are arresting people simply for clicking “like” on social media posts about Palestine.

In the US, university student groups have been disbanded for condemning the Israeli military’s massacres of civilians, and people have lost their jobs for making statements in support of Palestine.

In the UK, book tours and concerts related to Palestine have been canceled, and the home secretary considers it illegal for the Palestinian flag to be displayed in public spaces.

France has prohibited any pro-Palestinian demonstrations, while Germany has broken up the majority of demonstrations.

These measures are ostensibly designed to counter antisemitism and to prevent terrorism. To be sure, there has been an increase in antisemitism and incitement of terrorism, including racist remarks against Jews and terrorist threats against synagogues, since the outbreak of the war between Israel and Hamas.

Such behavior should be condemned.

The problem comes when even rational criticism of the historical and military misdeeds of the Israeli government is silenced and deemed antisemitic.

Antisemitism is being misrepresented and exploited for political ends. While the goal is to prevent a repeat of the historical persecution suffered by Jews, that also leaves room for opposition to Israel to be stigmatized as antisemitism.

The definition and examples of antisemitism adopted in 2016 by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, which represents countries in Europe and North America, include “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination.”

The goal here is to respect the Jewish people’s political independence and sovereignty and to reject external pressure on Jewish decisions about their own destiny. But since the state of Israel is the body that makes those decisions, that language also opens the door for treating criticism of Israeli policies as being inherently antisemitic. In conversations with Israelis, a comment that’s often made is that there’s no room for outsiders in the “Jewish homeland.”

Israel’s Ministry of National Security provided firearms to 400,000 illegal Jewish settlers in the West Bank. While attention has focused on the Gaza Strip over the past two months, more than a hundred Palestinian communities in the West Bank have vanished. Some Jewish settlers have burned down the homes of Palestinians and shot those who resisted, while others have cut off the supply of water and electricity to Palestinian communities to drive them from their homes.

Those are classic examples of ethnic cleansing and settler colonialism. Palestinians in occupied territory are unable to use the same facilities as Jews. Policies of segregation and forcible relocation are how Israeli governments of the past have exercised “self-determination.” Israeli lawmakers are part of the chatrooms where settler groups plan their next land grabs.

Israel’s president said that all Palestinians in the Gaza Strip bear responsibility for Hamas. The Israeli defense minister said that Israel is “fighting human animals” while referring to Gaza.

Dehumanization of the other side is the final stage of racial prejudice and the precondition for genocide. The Palestinian community is being erased on the pretext of wiping out Hamas.

But because all these Israeli policies are construed as exercising the right to self-determination and the political right to build a true Jewish state, any attacks on those policies are viewed as antisemitism. Even describing Israel’s behavior toward Palestine this year as racist has been categorized as a type of antisemitism.

One of the examples of antisemitism recognized by Western countries is conspiracy theories about “Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions.”

However, American universities have bowed to pressure from Jewish donors by muzzling professors who criticize Israel, and the US’ domestic and foreign policy is swayed by lobbying from powerful Jewish organizations.

There are more than a million Jews in New York City alone, and it’s no secret that you need to hold your tongue about Israel if you want to advance in the US.

France’s Jewish population, estimated at half a million, is incredibly organized, allowing it to exert a remarkable influence over the country’s political and economic systems, and numerous political bigwigs have made appearances at pro-Israel rallies that were ostensibly organized to denounce antisemitism.

And yet, even mentioning any of those facts is regarded as antisemitic.

The politicization of antisemitism is a cover for anti-Muslim sentiment. The French government says that over a thousand antisemitic crimes have been recorded since Israel’s war against Hamas began, but the majority of those are instances of Arab immigrants chanting slogans or waving banners related to Palestine.

Since both France and Germany have Muslim populations in excess of a million people and far-right groups that are rabid in their Islamophobia, the press and political establishments have been stigmatizing Muslim immigrants as perpetrators of hate crimes on the pretext of blocking antisemitism.

Support for Israel and remorse for historical crimes have been tainted by geopolitical interests and anti-Muslim sentiment. That’s the hypocrisy of the so-called liberal front that denounces the crimes against humanity being committed against Ukraine and against the Uyghurs in Xinjiang.

The cry of “Free Palestine” bears witness to the discrimination and hardship that Palestinian Arabs have faced for decades. Dismissing that cry as antisemitic illustrates the decay of Western democracies that have prided themselves on the freedom of expression and peaceful demonstrations.

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