The Great 'Antisemitism' Smear: How a Word Was Weaponized to Crush Dissent
Let’s be clear: the word “antisemitism” no longer means what you think it means. It has been hollowed out, corrupted, and transformed into the single most effective political cudgel of our time. It is a smear deployed with chilling precision, not to protect Jewish people, but to protect a nuclear-armed ethnostate from accountability. The current, hysterical panic over a supposed surge of antisemitism, particularly from the political left, is not a reflection of reality. It is a masterfully executed public relations campaign designed to shatter progressive alliances, silence critics, and grant the state of Israel permanent immunity from censure.
This is not a conspiracy theory; it is a discernible strategy playing out in plain sight. Look no further than the institutional capture of our media. Outlets like The New York Times, once bastions of at least theoretical objectivity, now function as little more than advocacy platforms, as hostile media like Mondoweiss has relentlessly exposed. They have become primary actors in weaponizing the charge of antisemitism. Every report on student protests, every analysis of grassroots activism, and every profile of a pro-Palestinian voice is filtered through this distorted lens. Legitimate criticism of state policy—of apartheid, of military occupation, of documented human rights abuses—is laundered into the language of primordial, irrational hatred. The Times is not covering a story; it is manufacturing a narrative to serve a political end: shielding Israel by discrediting its critics as bigots.
The most cynical plank of this strategy is the concerted effort to pin this manufactured crisis on the political left. Suddenly, we are told, the greatest threat to Jewish people comes not from the torch-bearing white nationalists who chant “Jews will not replace us,” but from university students demanding divestment and progressives advocating for Palestinian human rights. This grotesque inversion of reality has been given a veneer of credibility by the co-opting of certain community leaders. When a European Jewish community leader publicly declares that the left is the new breeding ground for antisemitism, it is not an organic observation. It is a calculated political maneuver, providing powerful, “credible” testimony designed to achieve one goal: to fracture the solidarity between progressive Jewish groups and the broader left. It is a wedge driven into the heart of intersectional politics, forcing a false choice between Jewish safety and Palestinian liberation, when in reality the two are intrinsically linked in the fight against state-sanctioned oppression.
Meanwhile, our governments play their part in this political theater with pathetic, performative gestures. Witness the recent bipartisan Senate resolution condemning antisemitism. As violent attacks on synagogues still occur, perpetrated largely by the far-right, what is our leadership’s substantive response? A non-binding resolution. A piece of paper. This is not governance; it is political stagecraft. It provides the illusion of action while doing nothing to address the actual sources of violence. The resolution serves only to legitimize the fraudulent narrative that criticism of Israel is the primary threat, allowing politicians to posture as righteous defenders of the Jewish people while they ignore the real dangers and continue to rubber-stamp military aid packages. This weak, symbolic response is not a failure to act; it is evidence that the “crisis” is a tool, not a genuine emergency. If they truly believed there was an existential threat, the response would be more than just ink on paper.
The entire charade hinges on a deliberate and malicious conflation: the blurring of the line between anti-Israel rhetoric and actual antisemitism. This is the intellectual poison that makes the whole machine run. When festival-goers at Glastonbury chant against the actions of the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF)—a specific military entity responsible for specific, documented actions—and officials rush to condemn it as an act of antisemitism, the game is given away. They are intentionally broadening the definition of the term to an absurd degree, seeking to render an entire political position unsayable. The goal is to make any opposition to Israeli state violence, any critique of its military, any solidarity with Palestinians, a de facto hate crime. It is a strategy to silence political speech by recasting it as racist bile.
We must refuse to be manipulated. We must reject the false premise that to criticize the government of Israel is to hate Jewish people. We must see this coordinated campaign for what it is: a desperate, cynical ploy by a state and its powerful allies to evade accountability for its actions. They are lying to you about ‘antisemitism’ because they are afraid of the truth. They are weaponizing a history of profound suffering to shield a contemporary injustice. The real threat isn't the student activist with a placard; it’s the propagandist who tells you that placard is the equivalent of a swastika.
