"Jews and Israel are not the same. Equating them is a propaganda technique. The claim is central to rationales for arming Israel even as leading human rights groups decry genocide in Gaza."

Central to rationales for arming Israel is the claim that it is the nation of “the Jewish people”.’ Photograph: Abdel Kareem Hana/AP

"During the 1980s, when activists in the United States and elsewhere targeted apartheid South Africa with non-violent campaigns for boycotts, divestment and sanctions, those actions did not provoke charges of being anti-white. In this century, the nonviolent Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement has targeted Israel, a country condemned as an apartheid state by one human rights organization after another after another – and BDS supporters, even if Jewish, routinely face accusations of antisemitism. In Congress, the accusers include many liberal Democrats" 

by Norman Solomon

Tue 16 Sep 2025

The Guardian  

More than nine months after Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch issued reports that concluded Israel was committing genocide – and more than a month since key Israeli human rights groups asserted the same – the American political establishment remains in rigid denial while horrors continue nonstop in Gaza. Virtually all Republicans and most Democrats in Congress still support massive US arms shipments to Israel, so they certainly can’t admit that the weaponry is making genocide possible.America

Central to rationales for arming Israel is the claim that it is the nation of “the Jewish people”.

When the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, spoke via video to a conference in Jerusalem three months ago, he declared: “There can be no nuanced separation of hatred of Israel and hatred of the Jewish people.” Rubio added: “Those who call for the destruction of Israel are calling for the destruction of the Jewish people.” Last month, the House speaker, Mike Johnson, reinforced the same message while visiting Israel, where he reportedly said that the West Bank was “the rightful property of the Jewish people”.

Such rhetoric – equating Israel with all Jews and Israel’s future with theirs – is an effort to sanctify Israel and shield it from criticism by brandishing the charge of antisemitism.

Fusing Israel with “the Jewish people” is a key propaganda technique. The fact that it’s so ubiquitous makes it no less ridiculous, or dangerous. A comment attributed to Voltaire applies: “As long as people believe in absurdities they will continue to commit atrocities.”

And atrocities continue with no end in sight. Israel has persisted with methodical – and clearly intentional – killing of Palestinian civilians not only with bombs, missiles and bullets but also with starvation as a weapon of war. Blockage or extreme constriction of humanitarian aid has been the norm. All summer, Israel has ignored the United Nations warning issued in June that food intake in Gaza had dropped far below “survival” level. By then, the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross said conditions there had become worse than “hell on earth”.

Ironically, the country that we’re told is the ultimate target of antisemitism is now, in reality, the world’s most powerful cause of antisemitism. By insisting that it is the embodiment of Jews all over the world, the state of Israel seeks to associate Jews everywhere with its systematic war crimes and genocide in Gaza along with deadly ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in the West Bank.... READ MORE  https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/sep/16/jews-israel-not-the-same-propaganda-technique

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