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Antisemitism scholars like me study perpetrators. We should know more about their victims.
(JTA) — The ruthless Hamas attack on civilian communities inside Israel shocked not only Israelis but much of the world. Pictures and grisly videos — some broadcast live by the perpetrators — flooded the world. Many governments and elected officials in the West swiftly expressed solidarity with Israel and empathy for the countless innocent victims, condemning the slaughter.
At the same time, as news was still coming out about the scope of Hamas attack and days before Israel’s retaliation, in cities and on college campuses across the United States, pro-Palestinian rallies and demonstrations showed a shocking lack of empathy for the massacred and kidnapped Israelis, among them young people attending a music festival, elderly Holocaust survivors, women, and children.
As a scholar of antisemitism watching these rallies, I wondered why there was such a reflexive disregard, even contempt, for Jewish victims. Why weren’t Jewish and Israeli victims of violence seen as human victims of violence but were immediately pushed into the political discourse about the Israeli government’s policies and actions? Why was their humanity erased?
Some of this contempt surely stems from the polarization wrought by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Some is rooted in centuries of theologically grounded habits of thinking about Jews as unworthy of the respect accorded to other kinds of human beings, and even unworthy of having their own land.
But some blame for this I think can also be laid on how those who study and write about antisemitism, including myself, have approached this subject.
For almost a century, most of us have focused on dissecting antisemitic ideas and ideologies. But — with the very important exception of those studying the Holocaust—we have not paid enough attention to the effect these ideas, images, and actions have on Jews as human beings.
Having taught a comparative course on antisemitism and racism at Fordham University, I have been thinking a lot about different scholarly approaches to the study of antisemitism and racism and their social impact.
Consider for example how scholars generally approach anti-Black racism. Many have focused on the impact of racism on Black communities and Black individuals — no matter how successful and accomplished they are. President Barack Obama spoke about being “mistaken for a waiter at a gala” and acknowledged the experience many Black Americans have had of being “mistaken for a robber and to be handcuffed, or worse.” We all can picture Ruby Bridges trying to get to school. We can think of Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson,and Carol Denise McNair, killed in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in 1963. We can all picture George Floyd and understand the significance of the words uttered by Eric Garner: “I can’t breathe.”
Yet, few Americans, or students on college campuses, would be hard-pressed to name a victim of antisemitism, or explain, beyond the deaths of millions of Jews in Europe, how indeed Jews have experienced antisemitism. Few would know that the college admissions process is the way it is in part because it was designed to exclude Jews from elite universities. Few would be able to articulate how Jews must feel when antisemitic memes circulate online, or when they hear slurs, see swastikas or Stars of David spray-painted on walls in workplaces, or see demonstrations near their neighborhoods, organized on Saturdays and coinciding with the Shabbat, in which people hold signs that say, “keep the world clean” — the obvious implication being, of Jews.
The focus on the Black experience of racism has a long history: It goes back at least to the publication of slave narratives and continues to the present day, as we read the works of James Baldwin, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Toni Morrison or George Yancy. In contrast, scholars of antisemitism have long focused not on victims but on proponents and perpetrators.
One result is that most educated Americans have been trained to acknowledge the full range of anti-Black racism and its impact on individuals, from public lynchings to microaggressions. In contrast, Jews tend to be viewed as privileged, with the harm done to them downplayed or unseen.
There is a cost to both approaches. The works on racism have been subsumed under “Black history,” and the relatively recent effort to shift the gaze onto white supremacists and their ideologies, and to make them part of our understanding of American history, has led to a fierce backlash, including book bans.
In contrast, the focus on antisemitic ideas and their perpetrators has arguably resulted in a comparative lack of empathy for the Jews victimized by such ideas. Even worse: paradoxically, by studying and writing about the perpetrators, we spotlight and preserve their antisemitic ideas. Our readers then are exposed to toxic ideas without seeing their impact on real people.
The Biden-Harris’s U.S. National Strategy to Combat Antisemitism, released in May, advocated for “(1) increasing awareness and understanding of antisemitism, including its threat to America, and broaden appreciation of Jewish American heritage; (2) improving safety and security for Jewish communities; (3) reversing the normalization of antisemitism and countering antisemitic discrimination; and (4) building cross-community solidarity and collective action against hate.”
Coupling “increasing awareness and understanding of antisemitism” with “appreciation of Jewish American heritage” is helpful in diversifying the image of Jews and their role in society. Indeed, teaching about Jewish history and culture is one of the most powerful antidotes to antisemitism.
But, as the responses to the Hamas massacres in Israel suggest, we need to do more to build empathy and recognize the impact of antisemitism on Jewish individuals — from microaggressions to outright violence.
A version of this article first appeared in Public Seminar.
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Trump Declares Iran-Israel Ceasefire a ‘Victory for Everybody’
US President Donald Trump speaks at a meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte (not pictured), at the NATO summit in The Hague, Netherlands, June 25, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Brian Snyder
US President Donald Trump hailed the swift end to war between Iran and Israel and said Washington would likely seek a commitment from Tehran to end its nuclear ambitions at talks with Iranian officials next week.
Trump said his decision to join Israel’s attacks by targeting Iranian nuclear sites with huge bunker-busting bombs had ended the war, calling it “a victory for everybody.”
“It was very severe. It was obliteration,” he said, shrugging off an initial assessment by the US Defense Intelligence Agency that Iran‘s path to building a nuclear weapon may have been set back only by months.
Speaking in The Hague where he attended a NATO summit on Wednesday, he said he did not see Iran getting involved again in developing nuclear weapons. Tehran has always denied decades of accusations by Western leaders that it is seeking nuclear arms.
“We’re going to talk to them next week, with Iran. We may sign an agreement. I don’t know. To me, I don’t think it’s that necessary,” Trump said.
Anxious Iranians and Israelis sought to resume normal life after the most intense confrontation ever between the two foes.
Israel’s nuclear agency assessed the strikes had “set back Iran‘s ability to develop nuclear weapons by many years.” The White House also circulated the Israeli assessment, although Trump said he was not relying on Israeli intelligence.
He said he was confident Tehran would pursue a diplomatic path towards reconciliation.
“I’ll tell you, the last thing they want to do is enrich anything right now. They want to recover,” he said.
If Iran tried to rebuild its nuclear program, “We won’t let that happen. Number one, militarily we won’t,” he said, adding that he thought “we’ll end up having something of a relationship with Iran” to resolve the issue.
The head of the UN’s nuclear watchdog, Rafael Grossi, dismissed what he called the “hourglass approach” of assessing damage to Iran‘s nuclear program in terms of months needed to rebuild as besides the point for an issue that needed a long-term solution.
“In any case, the technological knowledge is there, and the industrial capacity is there. That, no one can deny. So, we need to work together with them,” he said. His priority was returning international inspectors to Iranian nuclear sites, which he said was the only way to find out precisely what state they were in.
Israel’s bombing campaign, launched with a surprise attack on June 13, wiped out the top echelon of Iran‘s military leadership and killed leading nuclear scientists. Iran responded with missiles that pierced Israel’s defenses in significant numbers for the first time.
Iranian authorities said 627 people were killed and nearly 5,000 injured in Iran, where the extent of the damage could not be independently confirmed because of tight restrictions on media. Twenty-eight people were killed in Israel.
Israel claimed to have achieved its goals of destroying Iran‘s nuclear sites and missiles.
Trump said both sides were exhausted but the conflict could restart.
Israel’s demonstration that it could target Iran‘s senior leadership seemingly at will poses perhaps the biggest challenge yet for Iran‘s clerical rulers, at a critical juncture when they must find a successor for Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, now 86 and in power for 36 years.
President Masoud Pezeshkian, a relative moderate elected last year in a challenge to years of dominance by hardliners, said it could result in reform.
“This war and the empathy that it fostered between the people and officials is an opportunity to change the outlook of management and the behavior of officials so that they can create unity,” he said in a statement carried by state media.
Still, Iran‘s authorities moved swiftly to demonstrate their control. The judiciary announced the execution of three men on Wednesday convicted of collaborating with Israel’s Mossad spy agency and smuggling equipment used in an assassination. Iran had arrested 700 people accused of ties with Israel during the conflict, the state-affiliated Nournews reported.
During the war, both Netanyahu and Trump publicly suggested that it could end with the toppling of Iran‘s entire system of clerical rule, established in its 1979 revolution.
But after the ceasefire, Trump said he did not want to see “regime change” in Iran, which he said would bring chaos at a time when he wanted the situation to settle down.
The post Trump Declares Iran-Israel Ceasefire a ‘Victory for Everybody’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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UN Nuclear Chief Says It’s Possible Iran’s Highly Enriched Uranium ‘Is There’
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi arrives on the opening day of the agency’s quarterly Board of Governors meeting at the IAEA headquarters in Vienna, Austria, Nov. 20, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Lisa Leutner
There is a chance that much of Iran’s highly enriched uranium survived Israeli and US attacks because it may have been moved by Tehran soon after the first strikes, UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi said on Wednesday.
Israel repeatedly struck Iranian nuclear facilities during its 12-day war with Tehran, and US forces bombed Iran’s underground nuclear facilities at the weekend, but the extent of the damage to its stocks of enriched uranium is unclear.
International Atomic Energy Agency chief Grossi said earlier this week that Iran had informed the IAEA on June 13 – the first day of Israeli strikes – that it would take “special measures” to protect its nuclear materials and equipment.
“They did not get into details as to what that meant but clearly that was the implicit meaning of that, so we can imagine that this material is there,” Grossi told a press conference on Wednesday with members of the Austrian government.
“So, for that, to confirm, for the whole situation, evaluation, we need to return [IAEA inspectors to Iran’s nuclear facilities].”
He said ensuring the resumption of IAEA inspections was his top priority as none had taken place since the bombing began although Iran’s parliament approved moves on Wednesday to suspend such inspections.
The IAEA needs to determine how much remains of Iran’s stock of uranium enriched to up to 60 percent purity – a level that is close to the roughly 90 percent of weapons grade.
Uranium enrichment has both civilian and military applications. Iran has always denied seeking nuclear weapons and says its nuclear program is solely for peaceful purposes.
The IAEA says no other country has enriched to such a high level without producing nuclear weapons, and Western powers say there is no civil justification for it.
‘HOURGLASS APPROACH’
The last quarterly IAEA report on May 31 indicated that Iran had, according to an IAEA yardstick, enough uranium enriched to up to 60 percent purity for nine nuclear weapons if enriched further. It has enough for more bombs at lower enrichment levels such as 20 percent and 5 percent, the report showed.
A preliminary US intelligence assessment determined that the US strikes at the weekend set back Tehran’s program by only a matter of months, meaning Iran could restart its nuclear program in that time, three sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters on Tuesday.
“This hourglass approach is something I do not like … It’s in the eye of the beholder,” Grossi said.
“When you look at the … reconstruction of the infrastructure, it’s not impossible. First, there has been some that survived the attacks, and then this is work that Iran knows how to do. It would take some time.”
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on Tuesday that Tehran’s view on the nuclear program and the non-proliferation regime would now “witness changes, but it is not possible to say in what direction.”
Iran’s parliament approved a bill on Wednesday on suspending cooperation with the IAEA and stipulating that any future IAEA inspection would need approval by Iran’s Supreme National Security Council. The bill still requires approval by Iran’s unelected Guardian Council to become law.
Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf was quoted by state media as saying the IAEA “has put its international credibility up for sale” and that Iran would accelerate its civilian nuclear program.
“This would be, of course, very regrettable,” Grossi said of Iran’s threat to withdraw from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
“I hope this is not the case. I don’t think this would help anybody, starting with Iran. This would lead to isolation and all sorts of problems and, why not, perhaps, if not the unravelling a very, very, very serious erosion in the NPT structure,” he said.
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Comparing US Strike on Iran to Hiroshima, Trump Plays Down Intelligence Report
A satellite image shows airstrike craters over the underground centrifuge halls of the Natanz Enrichment Facility, following US airstrikes amid the Iran-Israel conflict, in Natanz County, Iran, June 22, 2025. Photo: Maxar Technologies/Handout via REUTERS
US President Donald Trump compared the impact of American strikes on Iranian nuclear sites to the end of World War II on Wednesday, arguing that the damage was severe even though available intelligence reports were inconclusive.
His comments followed reports by Reuters and other media outlets on Tuesday revealing that the US Defense Intelligence Agency had assessed that the strikes had set back Iran‘s nuclear program by just a few months, despite Trump and administration officials saying it had been obliterated.
“The intelligence was … very inconclusive,” Trump told reporters while meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte ahead of a summit in The Hague.
“The intelligence says, ‘We don’t know, it could have been very severe.’ That’s what the intelligence says. So, I guess that’s correct, but I think we can take the ‘we don’t know.’ It was very severe. It was obliteration,” Trump added.
SUCCESS OF IRAN STRIKES CRUCIAL FOR TRUMP
Trump has an uneasy relationship with the US intelligence community, and the success of the strikes is politically critical to him.
Some of his right-leaning supporters had argued loudly beforehand that such military intervention was inconsistent with Trump‘s domestic-focused “Make America Great Again” agenda and his promise to avoid foreign entanglements.
Trump has countered by insisting that Iran must never be allowed to obtain a nuclear weapon – a line that an accurate, decisive attack would support.
Trump said the US strikes were responsible for ending the war between Israel and Iran and compared them to the United States’ use of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, which brought an end to World War II in 1945.
“I don’t want to use an example of Hiroshima, I don’t want to use an example of Nagasaki, but that was essentially the same thing. That ended that war. This ended the war,” Trump said.
Trump argued that Iran‘s nuclear program had been set back “basically decades, because I don’t think they’ll ever do it again” and he turned to top advisers to reinforce that message.
Broadly, he has argued that the strikes were much more successful than has so far been reported in the US media.
The White House on Wednesday shared what it said was a statement from the Israel Atomic Energy Commission – that country’s nuclear regulator – assessing that Iran‘s nuclear program had been set back by “many years.”
Al Jazeera quoted an Iranian official on Wednesday saying that the country’s nuclear installations had been “badly damaged.”
HEGSETH AND RUBIO REINFORCE TRUMP‘S MESSAGE
Trump, who arrived in the Netherlands late on Tuesday for NATO’s annual summit, was sitting beside Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who both also cast doubt on the reliability of the DIA assessment.
“When you actually look at the report – by the way, it was a top secret report – it was preliminary, it was low-confidence,” Hegseth said. “This is a political motive here.”
He said the FBI was investigating a potential leak. Rubio suggested that those responsible for sharing the report had mischaracterized it, saying: “This is the game they play.”
All three men criticized media reports about the intelligence assessments.
At the summit, NATO member states were set to announce their joint intention to raise defense spending to 5 percent of gross domestic product.
While some countries have suggested they may not in fact reach that threshold, the Trump administration has pointed to the expected commitment as a significant foreign policy victory.
The post Comparing US Strike on Iran to Hiroshima, Trump Plays Down Intelligence Report first appeared on Algemeiner.com.