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There Are Not Two Sides to Antisemitism; These Are Signs of Jew-Hatred

Illustrative: Thousands of anti-Israel demonstrators from the Midwest gather in support of Palestinians and hold a rally and march through the Loop in Chicago on Oct. 21, 2023. Photo: Alexandra Buxbaum/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect

The October 7 Hamas terror attack in Israel was the worst single day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. And yet, Hamas’ torture, indiscriminate murder, and kidnapping of innocent people has unleashed staggering antisemitism around the world.

More than 1,200 people were slaughtered in Israel, including women, children, infants, and the elderly, and approximately 240 hostages are still being held in Gaza. The attacks, and the Israeli government’s response to them, have sparked protests around the world.

Unfortunately, too many of the voices criticizing Israel’s actions to defend itself and rescue its hostages have descended into open antisemitism.

American Jews make up just more than 2% of the US population, yet they accounted for more than half of religiously-motivated hate crimes in 2022 according to the FBI — a 37% increase compared to 2021. And that was long before the Hamas attack and the subsequent aftermath on the Jewish community.

Contemporary antisemitism is often stoked by social media and online posts. Since October 7, messages that are not only anti-Israel, but anti-Jewish have been amplified by segments within pro-Palestinian protests.

Antisemitism is the world’s oldest prejudice because of its adaptability; today we see this hatred promoted under the guise of human rights. While it is not always clear when or whether some words and phrases are blatantly antisemitic–and context can be critical, if you witness these eight terms, tropes, and themes, you are seeing discrimination against Jews.

There are not two sides to antisemitism.

1. Dirty/Filthy Jews

Describing Jews as “dirty” or “filthy,” which was seen on a sign during a pro-Palestine protest, draws on anti-Jewish themes including “poisoning the well,” an accusation rooted in the 14th-century Bubonic Plague that blamed Jews for purposefully spreading disease. Following the Hamas attack on Israel in October 2023, a Jewish person in London was called a “dirty Jew” and was also told, “no wonder you’re all getting raped.” That’s happened countless times before and after October 7.

 2. Dual Loyalty

Dual loyalty is a bigoted trope used to cast Jews as the “other,” accusing them of being disloyal citizens whose true allegiance is to other Jews or to Israel. This creates distrust and spreads harmful ideas, such as the belief Jews are a traitorous “fifth column,” undermining their country from within. Some anti-Israel activists have asserted Jews should leave their countries and Israel to go “back to Poland” or other places where Jews have historically lived. Dual loyalty accusations also occur on US college campuses, when Jewish students are asked to denounce Israel in order to participate in progressive activities. 

3. Justifying Hamas

Hamas is an internationally-recognized terrorist organization in Gaza, which is funded by Iran. Its founding charter, also known as the Covenant, calls for the destruction of Israel and the annihilation of the world’s Jews.

Hamas founder Ahmed Yassin said, “Killing Jews is an act of devotion.”

At several pro-Palestine rallies around the world, protestors chanted, spray painted, and held signs supporting Hamas and promoting violence, saying “resistance is justified when people are occupied.” Slaughtering innocent people, including children and babies; raping women; and kidnapping civilians is not resistance. Any justification for Hamas must be condemned for what it is: defending the indiscriminate murder of Jews.

4. “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free”

“From the River to the Sea,” is a rallying cry for terrorist groups and their sympathizers, from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) to Hamas, who are seeking Palestinian control over all of Israel’s borders from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.

While there is nothing antisemitic about advocating for Palestinians to have their own state, this specific call implies the eradication of Israel and Jews from their historic homeland.

To most Jews, the chant is an existential threat to the one Jewish state where Jews can live freely and safely. Yet, pro-Palestine protesters, including members of Congress, have repeatedly used and defended the phrase, despite it being a call for violence against Jews and Israelis.

5. Deicide

The deicide charge, which blames Jews for Jesus’ crucifixion, is a trope echoing centuries-old methods of maligning Jews that have been refuted for decades by the Roman Catholic Church. But antisemites continue to use it to justify anti-Jewish hatred. Branding Jews as Christ-killers has been recycled in the Middle East, often by comparing Jesus with Palestinians who are “crucified” by the Israeli military or government.

In May 2021, for instance, a protester in Miami held a sign reading, “Jesus was Palestinian and you killed him too,” and in London, a protester shared an image of Christ carrying the cross with the words, “Do not let them do the same thing today again.” 

6. Blood Libel

Since the Middle Ages, blood libel charges have falsely accused Jews of killing and using the blood of Christians for ritual purposes. For centuries, such claims to demonize Jews led to horrific violence, destruction, persecution, and massacres of Jewish people and communities.

Today, these antisemitic charges have evolved into blaming Jews for purposefully targeting and killing Palestinian children. The blood libel has been seen and heard from cartoons, such as in Al-Ghad, the Jordanian daily, which depicted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu drinking the blood of children in the Gaza Strip, to inappropriate signs and libelous headlines, including on October 17, 2023, when major newspapers including The New York Times falsely reported that Israel intentionally bombed the Al Ahli Baptist Hospital.

This misinformation perpetuated a common antisemitic trope that Israelis are bloodthirsty and intentionally killed Palestinian civilians, and led to attacks on Jewish communities and institutions. It took several days before news sources accurately reported that a Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) rocket misfired and hit the hospital, by which time the false narrative was already accepted as truth.  

7. Holocaust Distortion and Denial

Distorting or trivializing the Holocaust, which was the systematic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators, is an attack on Jewish memory and identity.

We saw an alarming amount of Holocaust comparisons during the COVID-19 pandemic, which downplayed and distorted the Holocaust and lessened what Hitler did. On the other side, saying Zionism, which is the national liberation movement of the Jewish people, equals Nazism — which led to the genocide of the Jewish people — also lessens what Hitler did. That statement is not a disagreement with Israeli policy; it is a distortion of the Holocaust.

The day after Hamas’ invasion, a pro-Palestinian protester displayed a Nazi swastika in Times Square. Graffiti of Nazi swastikas were tagged on Jewish institutions around the world. Saying Israel is perpetrating a “second Holocaust” by trying to annihilate Palestinians is both factually wrong and antisemitic. 

8. Holding Jews Collectively Responsible

While criticizing the Israeli government is not antisemitic, associating all Jews with the policies of a sovereign nation absolutely is. This blame furthers long standing conspiracy theories of secret Jewish power and world domination, which originate from a discredited Tsarist Russian publication called Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

Even though it is clearly a work of fiction, “many school textbooks throughout the Arab and Islamic world teach the Protocols as fact,” according to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. Jews around the world have rightly feared that anti-Israel protests and pro-Hamas sentiment would lead to violence against Jews living in the Diaspora. Unfortunately, there are dozens of examples of how Jews continue to be targeted because of the war.

Many of these terms and dozens of others are found in the Translate Hate glossary from American Jewish Committee (AJC), which highlights how easy it is for antisemitism to hide in plain sight. The more you can recognize these terms, the easier it is to call them out for what they are and help combat anti-Jewish prejudice and hatred.

Holly Huffnagle is the U.S. Director for Combating Antisemitism at American Jewish Committee (AJC).

The post There Are Not Two Sides to Antisemitism; These Are Signs of Jew-Hatred first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Why Do Western Countries Treat Qatar Better Than Their Jewish Citizens?

Qatar’s Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani attends an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council, following an Israeli attack on Hamas leaders in Doha, Qatar, at UN headquarters in New York City, US, Sept. 11, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz

Growing up in communist Prague, I was exposed to antisemitism expressed largely by government officials and communist outlets, rather than by citizens themselves.

I learned in school about three major enemies of the socialist republic of Czechoslovakia: Germans seeking to conquer back the Sudetenland, American imperialists, and, you might have guessed, Zionists. And I was one of them.

The propaganda during the Six-Day War was unrelenting and hostile to Israel. Some years later, during my studies in medical school, I was invited to continue as a graduate student at the genetics institute after obtaining my MD degree. However, a year or so later, I was disinvited because I was Jewish.

Surprisingly, the old Jewish quarter in Prague was relatively well maintained — it was a big tourist attraction, especially for Germans, and a good source of Western currency for the state. There was also a permanent exhibit of art by Jewish children imprisoned in Theresienstadt during World War II. And we did read Anne’s Frank diary. Prague was still much better than the Soviet Union and Romania.

At that time, Western Europe, the US, and Canada were the beacons of freedom for everybody, including Jews. A few decades later, it appears to me that the sides have switched.

Central and Eastern Europe (not counting Russia) have become more hospitable to Jews, and Western Europe and Canada are outright hostile. The situation in the US is somewhat mixed. What happened?

Most Western officials and leaders blame Israel for the war in Gaza, and they accuse Israel of genocide, intentional famine, and starvation of Gazans. Hamas has become — or at least is becoming — a beacon of freedom, especially among younger generations. In the meantime, the EU, UK, and Canada are threatening Israel with sanctions and recognizing a State of Palestine, which is basically a reward for Oct. 7.

Affairs have further deteriorated after Israel’s bombing of a meeting of Hamas leaders in Doha last week. Everybody runs to the defense of Qatar — after all, Qatar is considered an “honest” mediator between Israel and Hamas. This is the same Qatar that is the instigator of anti-Zionism and antisemitism by infiltrating Western institutions, particularly universities and subverting the education of Western values into support for radicalism, and is also the host of Hamas leaders and financiers, including those who planned the October 7 massacre.

Do Western countries really believe that Qatar, led by an emir with three wives, with a track record of slave working conditions of its foreign workers and with funding of Hamas terrorists, deserves support?

Furthermore, the hate in Western Europe is not being directed just at Israelis (which is still wrong, since Israel is not a monolith) — but against all Jews.

Jews, and particularly Israeli Jews, are disinvited from conferences, art performances, collaborations with their colleagues, sports events, and more. They are dehumanized and physically attacked on the streets of Western cities. The Spanish Prime Minister has been attempting to throw out Israeli athletes from several competitions because they were attacked by pro-Palestinian demonstrators rather than preventing demonstrators from attacking Israelis.

What is going to happen to Jews living in the West? Will they really be protected? Overall, Western governments appear to be willing to throw their Jewish citizens under the bus. Why is that? Do they really trust Qatar as an honest mediator, and even more as the most important non-NATO ally? Do they pretend they’ve never heard about Qatar’s subversive role in Western countries and support of the Muslim Brotherhood? Are they afraid of their increasing Muslim populations due to immigration and high birth rates in their own countries? Don’t they realize that they are falling into a moral morass at an accelerating rate?

It is unclear how long Western outrage at Israel will last. Is it going to be short-lived, like when Israel bombed Iraq’s nuclear reactor in 1981? Or will the West try to humiliate Israel and force (or at least attempt to do so) a solution to the war that leaves Hamas in power and isolates Israel internationally? One can only hope that the West, led by the US, will make the right decision not only for Israel, but for all democratic countries.

Dr. Jaroslava Halper has been a professor of pathology at The University of Georgia in Athens, GA for many years. She escaped from communist Prague because of antisemitism, and lack of freedom and free speech. The gradual increase of antisemitism and anti-Zionism in certain circles in her second homeland, and the devastating October 7 massacre by Hamas, led her to realize that more active engagement is necessary to combat antisemitism, including anti-Zionism.

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Palestinian Authority: Marco Rubio’s ‘Invasion’ of the Western Wall Is a Crime Against Islam

Benjamin Netanyahou and Marco Rubio. Photo: David Azagury, US Embassy Jerusalem

On Sunday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Ambassador Mike Huckabee visited the Western Wall of the Temple Mount, together with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) was incensed by this visit, and publicized a long condemnation by the PA Jerusalem Governorate against what they called a “crime” against Islamic holy places:

The participation in these invasions by high-ranking American officials in an official capacity constitutes unacceptable collusion with the occupation’s policy, and dangerous willful blindness to the daily crimes committed against the holy city, its residents, and its holy places.

When Jews and Christians pray at the Western Wall or on the Temple Mount, the PA condemns what they call “Talmudic ceremonies.” The visit “offends the feelings of our Palestinian people”:

The Jerusalem Governorate viewed the invasion of the occupation’s Prime Minister — Benjamin Netanyahu, American Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and American Senator [sic, Ambassador] Mike Huckabee into the Western Wall plaza, and the fact that they held Talmudic ceremonies at this purely Islamic site, as a provocative step that offends the feelings of our Palestinian people and constitutes a blatant violation of the historical and legal status quo in the occupied city of Jerusalem.

Even though Muslims built a mosque in Jerusalem on the site of the Temples specifically because it was a Jewish holy site, today the PA proclaims that the Western Wall is a solely Islamic site:

The governorate emphasized that the Western Wall is an inseparable part of the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque and that it is part of the Islamic Waqf lands under Palestinian sovereignty. It further stressed that there is no legitimacy for any Israeli or foreign presence within it, without the approval of the relevant Palestinian authorities.

The PA even threatened that this “escalation” would have “consequences”:

The governorate warned of this escalation’s consequences on the situation on the ground within the city. It emphasized that the Palestinian people would not agree to any harm to the Arab identity of Jerusalem or its Islamic and Christian holy places, and that they would resist all attempts to impose the occupation’s sovereignty over the land and the people. The governorate called on the international community… to curb the occupation’s violations and stop the American involvement in support for the Judaization projects of the occupied city.

[PA Jerusalem Governorate, Facebook, September 14, 2025]

The author is the Founder and Director of Palestinian Media Watch, where a version of this article first appeared. 

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What Charlie Kirk Meant to Jewish Conservatives

Charlie Kirk speaking at the inauguration of Donald Trump in January 2025. Photo: Brian Snyder via Reuters Connect

The horrific assassination of activist Charlie Kirk has left Jewish conservatives asking who will weaken the anti-Jewish hostility brewing in some corners of the far right now that Kirk has left us.

The 31-year-old, a devout Christian and founder of the organization Turning Point USA (TPUSA), understood that a society that turns on its Jews is a society that is rotting at its core.

When it came to quieting the antisemitic energies of the far right, Kirk knew that the conspiratorial scapegoating was a symptom of a serious malady, aggravated by an anxious and unhappy generation living in a digital den within an increasingly secularized America.

Kirk said that rejecting antisemitism, which he called “demonic,” was directly tied to defending Western civilization and protecting America’s Judeo-Christian identity.

That’s sadly ironic, given that many far right conspiracists online have blamed the Jewish people or Israel for Kirk’s murder.

In what may have conveyed a warning to the crop of influencers seeking to manipulate the Kirk assassination to advance their anti-Jewish objectives, US President Donald Trump released an image on Friday, showing the US leader and Kirk embracing against a backdrop of a US and Israeli flag with the caption reading, “Everybody Loved Charlie!”

Kirk’s speaking engagements at college campuses across the country drew thousands of students, admirers, and protestors. The informal open-air events provided participants with a platform to ask the late conservative influencer his thoughts on a host of issues, with many questions focused on Israel, Gaza, and the Jews.

Always respectful, Kirk carefully articulated why antisemitism is anti-Americanism.

Whether coming from the progressive left or the far right, Kirk defended Israel through a strategic and historical lens, and rejected the slew of libelous accusations leveled against the Jewish State.

Most recently, the TPUSA President exposed liberal media outlets for their role in fomenting the lie that Israel was starving the citizens of Gaza.

He also inspired Jewish conservatives to confront toxic positions with serious rebuttals, rather than with reflexive smears, while affirming that the path to a healthier country required responding to unsavory ideas through thoughtful and critical reason.

Acknowledging that it’s “hunting season for Jews right now in this country and that is a sick thing,” Kirk recently instructed an Israeli student who was harassed on a US campus to get “tougher.”

Indeed, he encouraged Jews to fight hate not with grievance, but with grit.

Jewish victimhood may have worked as a convenient tool of the political left, but Kirk saw the necessity and beauty in Jewish strength.

He emboldened Jewish Americans to lean into faith, and showed us that religion is the moral and divine anchor in today’s complicated and liberalized world.

Kirk advocated for issues that were in American Jews’ best interest, even as many of our own leaders resisted departing from the liberal sensibilities that undermined Jewish safety, and refused to acknowledge the dangers embedded in liberal immigration regulations.

As mainstream Jewish groups ignored the challenges associated with the increasing number of Muslims with radical ideologies entering the US, Kirk was firm in his assertion that radicalized Islam was incompatible with Western civilizational values.

Kirk granted right-leaning American Jews the space and the courage to sharpen our arguments as to why adopting strict immigration provisions was sound policy. He also defended Israel his whole life, and was an astute observer of the cracks in the emerging debate among younger conservative cohorts as it relates to safeguarding the US-Israel bond.

Warning of an “earthquake coming on this issue”, Kirk convened a focus group over the summer featuring Gen Z conservatives to discuss America’s alliance with Israel.

It was a candid discussion, and the panel provided a blueprint for what constituted “persuadable” pro-Israel arguments, and why, according to the young TPUSA supporters, focusing on shared values, radical Islamist threats, and intelligence cooperation was more of a motivator for bolstering support for Israel than unveiling public campaigns that underscored the progressive policies undertaken by the Jewish State.

The horrific assassination of Charlie Kirk has left Jewish Americans with an intense sadness over losing a friend who was critical to sidelining the anti-Jewish rumblings occurring across the cultural and political landscape.

As an Evangelical Christian, Kirk also taught American Jewry the value of adhering to our Jewish inheritance. He delivered a roadmap for how strong Jews, who commit to channeling conservative ideals through robust debate, are crucial to preserving the Judeo-Christian character of our country and will organically yield a US-Israel alliance that will be a bulwark against the enemies of Western civilization.

Irit Tratt is a writer who resides in New York. Follow her on X @Irit_Tratt.

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