First Published at JudgeNap.com
In the months since October 7, when Hamas carried out a brutal and inexcusable attack on Israeli civilians, the world has watched in growing horror as the Israeli government—led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—has unleashed a campaign of destruction across the Gaza Strip that has few modern parallels. Entire families wiped out. Schools and hospitals reduced to rubble. Aid convoys bombed. Journalists silenced. Over 65,000 Palestinians killed, the vast majority of them women and children, according to the United Nations and humanitarian groups.
And yet, as calls for accountability and restraint rise, Netanyahu’s response has been consistent and cynical: any criticism of Israel is labeled “anti-Semitism.”
This is not only intellectually dishonest—it’s dangerous. It cheapens the real, rising threat of anti-Semitism globally by weaponizing it as a political shield for a government engaging in what many experts now consider war crimes.
Let me be clear: Anti-Semitism is real. It is a hatred that has haunted Jewish communities for centuries and led to unimaginable atrocities, including the Holocaust. But the demand for human rights and dignity for Palestinians is not born from that hatred—it is born from the very lessons that the Holocaust taught the world.
What Netanyahu’s government is doing in Gaza—dehumanizing a civilian population, forcing displacement, destroying infrastructure, and killing indiscriminately—is not a defense of the Jewish people. It is a betrayal of Jewish values, international law, and basic human decency.
Many Jewish voices, both in Israel and around the world, have been among the most courageous in speaking out against this violence. Organizations like Jewish Voice for Peace, Breaking the Silence, and thousands of Israeli and diaspora Jews have risked censure to declare: “Not in our name.” These are not self-hating Jews. These are people who understand that silence in the face of injustice is complicity.
And yet Netanyahu clings to the narrative that he—and he alone—represents the Jewish people. He does not. He represents a right-wing government clinging to power through fear, division, and war. A government that has made permanent occupation its policy. That has expanded settlements in violation of international law. That has rejected every viable path to peace and a two-state solution.
What we are witnessing is not an age-old ethnic or religious conflict. It is the logical endgame of a decades-long system of apartheid and impunity. And the world is finally beginning to say so.
That is not anti-Semitism. That is moral clarity.
Christopher Leonard is the Founder/CEO – OMG Media Partners, LLC. He is the Exec. Producer: Judging Freedom w/ Judge Andrew Napolitano
