Netanyahu’s Gaza war tactics, civilian toll, and dismissal of criticism as anti-Semitism are isolating Israel globally, risking its transformation into a pariah state.
LONDON: On Wednesday, two young members of the Israeli embassy in Washington were leaving an event at the Capital Jewish Museum, about a mile from the White House, when they were murdered in cold blood. According to Israel’s ambassador to the US, Yechiel Leiter, the victims, Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim, had become close friends and were planning to travel to Jerusalem the following week to become engaged. Instead of a wedding, their parents and friends will now be attending their funerals. Advocacy groups, to which both Yaron and Sarah belonged, told Reuters that each was trying to promote reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians. Sickeningly, their suspected murderer, 30-year-old Elias Rodrigues from Chicago, shouted “Free Palestine, Free Palestine” as he was taken into custody. Later, Rodrigues told police “I did it for Palestine. I did it for Gaza”.
President Donald Trump quickly condemned the shooting. “These horrible D.C. killings, based obviously on anti-Semitism, must end now” he said in a message on Truth Social. “Hatred and Radicalism have no place in the USA”. World leaders also took to social media to add their sympathy and outrage at the sickening violence against the two young victims who promoted peaceful coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his heart ached for the families of the victims “whose lives were cut short in a moment by an abhorrent anti-Semitic murderer. “We are witnessing the terrible cost of anti-Semitism and wild incitement against the State of Israel”, he said on X, adding that both “must be fought to the utmost”.
Note Netanyahu’s link between “anti-Semitism” and “incitement against the State of Israel”. Anti-Semitism it surely was, but was the callous and outrageous murder of Yaron and Sarah an “incitement against the State of Israel”? During the war in Gaza, Netanyahu has regularly accused critics of Israel of anti-Semitism, using fiery rhetoric to compare them to the Jewish people’s worst persecutors. In return, his detractors say he is overusing the label to further his political agenda and try to stifle even legitimate criticism. In doing so, they claim, he risks diluting the term’s meaning at a time when anti-Semitism is surging worldwide. Israeli historian, Tom Segev, wrote last year that “not every criticism against Israel is anti-Semitic. The moment you say it is anti-Semitic hate, you take away all legitimacy from the criticism and try to crush the debate”. While it’s clear that events during the Israel-Hamas war are correlated with the rise in anti-Semitism, it’s crucial to distinguish between the two. Criticism of Israel’s Government, including its policies and actions in Gaza and elsewhere, is entirely legitimate.
The war in Gaza has reignited the long debate about the definition of anti-Semitism and whether any criticism of Israel, from its military’s killing of thousands of Palestinian children to questions over Israel’s very right to exist, amounts to anti-Jewish hate speech. Since first becoming Israel’s prime minister in 1996, Benjamin Netanyahu has used the travails of the Jewish people to colour his political rhetoric.
Take his reaction to the protests on US college campuses against the brutal treatment by Israel’s IDF on innocent civilians in Gaza, for example. At its height, Netanyahu released a video statement condemning their “unconscionable” anti-Semitism and comparing the mushrooming encampments on college greens to “Nazi Germany of the 1930s”. This theme was developed in November 2024 when he criticised the International Criminal Court issuing arrest warrants against him and his minister of defence, Yoav Gallant, in addition to Hamas commanders, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity. Comparing the ICC judges to “German judges who approved of the Nazi’s race laws against Jews, Netanyahu said they were “callously pouring gasoline on the fires of anti-Semitism. His comments drew a rebuke from the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell. “The prosecutor of the court has been strongly intimidated and accused of anti-Semitism – as always when anybody, anyone does something that Netanyahu’s government does not like”, he said.
Many commentators have noted that Netanyahu has the habit of leveraging events in Gaza to encourage Israeli’s to rally round him at a time when his public support has plummeted and Israelis are growing impatient with the war. “He deflects blame from himself, attributing any shortcomings not to his foreign policies or policies in the Palestinian territories, but rather to anti-Semitism”, they say. “This narrative benefits him greatly, absolving him of responsibility”. Netanyahu’s accusers have noted that he repeatedly sidesteps any accountability for not preventing Hamas’ horrific attack on 7 October 2023, when 1200 innocent Israeli’s were killed and 250 taken hostage. Many in Israel’s defence establishment acknowledge they shoulder the blame – but not Benjamin Netanyahu.
Just as many in the West were horrified by the slaughter and rape of so many blameless Israelis, young and old, by Hamas 19 months ago, so they are by Israel’s relentless bombing and blockade of Gaza. Most Palestinians have seen their and their neighbour’s homes destroyed by Israeli bombs, with countless women and children blown to pieces, their remains buried deep under rubble. Clueless, shocked and scared civilians are repeatedly issued with new “evacuation orders”, dangerous directives that make no sense in the nightmare reality on the ground. For more than two months, Netanyahu has maintained a total blockade of Gaza, allowing no food, water or medicines to enter. The blockade has been so severe that it has put almost all of its 2.2 million population at risk of famine, says the UN’s global food monitor. According to Amnesty International, the impact is so great that it is “genocide in action”. UN bodies estimate that 600 trucks per day are required to begin tackling Gaza’s chronic humanitarian catastrophe, a crisis which, according to the UN’s humanitarian chief, Tom Fletcher, could lead to thousands of babies dying. Speaking to the BBC on Tuesday, Fletcher said “there are 14,000 babies that will die unless we can reach them.” Last week the Hamas-run health ministry reported that 57 children had died from the effects of malnutrition over the past 11 weeks alone. TV screens in the West are full of pictures of tiny babies weighing less than half their due weight as mothers struggle to get nutrients for them.
On Monday, the UK, France and Canada finally ran out of patience with Netanyahu when their leaders issued a statement condemning Israel’s resumed ferocious bombardment and blockade. “We have always supported Israel’s right to defend itself against terrorism, but this escalation is wholly disproportionate and risks breaching international law”, the leaders said. “We cannot stand by while Netanyahu pursues these egregious actions”. Even Israeli opposition party leader, Yair Golan, said on Monday that Israel’s conduct “risks putting it on a path to becoming a pariah state like South Africa once was, if it doesn’t return to acting like a sane country. A sane state does not wage war against civilians, does not kill babies as a hobby, and does not set goals for itself like the expulsion of a population”. Golan was repudiated by Netanyahu and many of his political allies, including far-right leaders and cabinet ministers, Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, both of whom have called for Gaza’s conquest and depopulation. But Yair Golan rebuffed their criticism. “The intention of my statement was clear. The war is the enactment of Ben Gvir and Smotrich’s fantasies” he said, “and if we let them pursue them, we will become a pariah state”.
More than 6 million Jews were brutally murdered by the Nazis during WWII in a vast network of extermination camps across Europe. The Holocaust, as it is known, became a major factor in the establishment in 1948 of the State of Israel, where all Jews could feel safe and secure. By his brutal attacks on Palestinian civilians in Gaza, in a futile attempt to save the hostages while destroying the Hamas terrorists, sympathy for the Jewish cause is draining fast and Benjamin Netanyahu is gradually turning the paradise into a pariah state. As Yair Golan warned, this is how the world is beginning to view the State of Israel.
*John Dobson is a former British diplomat, who also worked in UK Prime Minister John Major’s office between 1995 and 1998. He is currently a visiting fellow at the University of Plymouth.
