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Who’s responsible for deadly antisemitism? Everyone will hate the answer
Twenty Jews outside of the state of Israel were murdered for being Jewish in antisemitic attacks across three continents in 2025, the highest death toll among diaspora Jews in more than 30 years. In every country surveyed, antisemitic incidents of all kinds — including beatings, vandalism, threats and online harassment — remain dozens of percentage points higher than they were in 2022, before the Gaza war began.
This information, released in a report from Tel Aviv University on the eve of Yom HaShoah earlier this week, should haunt everyone, regardless of political affiliation.
Neither left nor right is wholly responsible; instead, the report concludes that “rather than a backlash to a specific geopolitical crisis, high levels of antisemitism have become a normalized feature in societies with large Jewish minorities.”
What the left should hear
There is a strain of progressive opinion, particularly vocal since the Hamas attack of Oct. 7, 2023, that dismisses accusations of antisemitism as, essentially, a political weapon — a tool wielded by pro-Israel voices to silence legitimate criticism of Israeli government policy, shut down protests and conflate opposition to political Zionism with hatred of Jews.
There is some truth to this narrative. But the Tel Aviv University report reveals it has severe limitations, as well.
The Bondi Beach massacre did not happen because a government defined antisemitism too broadly. The synagogue attackers in Manchester, England did not gun down worshippers because someone misapplied the IHRA definition. The victims of attacks in Boulder, Colorado and Washington, D.C. were not statistics manufactured by an advocacy group. Twenty Diaspora Jews died violent deaths because antisemitism remains a lethal force in the world — a truth that the left, across the globe, needs to do a significantly better job addressing.
The physical assaults, murders, firebombings, and other acts of concrete violence chronicled in the report cannot be rationalized away as mere criticism of Israel. In Canada, incidents rose from roughly 2,000 in 2022 to 6,800 in 2025. In Australia, the total number of reported antisemitic incidents rose from 472 in 2022 to 1,750 in 2025 — nearly a fourfold increase in three years, including multiple arson attacks on synagogues, in addition to the Bondi Beach shooting.
The tendency among some progressives to dismiss most antisemitism complaints as presumed to be in bad-faith unless proven otherwise has real costs. When allegations of antisemitism are reflexively treated as a political tactic, it becomes easier to ignore actual antisemitism, even when it’s claiming lives and burning down religious buildings.
To be clear, there are real and important questions about how to define antisemitism, and where the line between good faith criticism of Israel as a nation-state and antisemitism against Jews as a people falls. Those questions must continue to be asked.
But when Jewish institutions are targeted and a primary political reflex on the left is to search for Israeli wrongdoing that might have “provoked” the attack, the victims are abandoned.
What the right — and the Israeli government — should hear
The Tel Aviv University report challenges progressive denial. But it challenges the Israeli government and its defenders just as directly.
The report’s authors write that Israeli politicians at the highest levels have “expanded the scope of the term ‘antisemitism,’ including through cynical and hasty declarations, drained it of meaning, and damaged the struggle against Jew-hatred.”
The government, they conclude, “has not contributed in any meaningful way to the cause” of fighting antisemitism against diaspora Jews.
This is not a minor complaint buried in a footnote. It is a central finding of the most authoritative antisemitism report on the planet, published by an Israeli university.
Consider what that behavior looked like in practice. When gunmen massacred 15 Jews at Bondi Beach in December, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s immediate political instinct was to blame Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s government, specifically its decision to recognize Palestinian statehood at the United Nations.
“Your call for a Palestinian state pours fuel on the antisemitic fire,” Netanyahu declared — a response that made it seem like an act of violence motivated by the Islamic State was somehow part of the legitimate pro-Palestinian movement. As former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull pointed out, the vast majority of the world’s nations recognize Palestinian statehood. Were they all complicit in Bondi?
This pattern of using the word “antisemitism” as a cudgel against any policy position that Israel’s government dislikes — whether it is recognizing Palestinian statehood, criticizing settlement expansion or questioning IDF military operations — has a corrosive effect on the fight against actual antisemitism. When the term is deployed reflexively and politically, it trains audiences to be skeptical of the label. It gives ammunition to exactly those who want to dismiss Jewish fear as manufactured. It is, in the deepest possible sense, counterproductive.
The Tel Aviv University report goes further, recommending that Israel’s Ministry for Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism be dissolved entirely, with its funding transferred instead to Israeli embassies and consulates. The author’s argument: only professionals embedded in local communities, working alongside law enforcement and educators, can actually make a difference in combatting antisemitism. Grand declarations from politicians in Jerusalem motivated more by their own domestic political considerations than by the safety of the Jewish diaspora cannot.
A need for discipline
What this report ultimately demands, from the left and the right alike, is a discipline that both sides have conspicuously failed to practice: the discipline of treating antisemitism as a separate issue from the issues of Israel, Zionism and Palestinian rights.
These issues do overlap. But they are fundamentally individual. Antisemitism is hatred of Jews as Jews, a prejudice that has existed for millennia, operates independently of any particular government’s behavior, and kills people without asking victims what they think about Israeli settlements.
The contemporary state of Israel is a nation-state which commits specific actions, many of which are worthy of criticism.
Conflating the two, in either direction, produces disaster.
On the right, treating any political position unfavorable to Israel as presumptively antisemitic weaponizes Jewish suffering for political ends and corrupts the language we need to name and fight real hatred. On the left, treating the existence of real Jew-hatred as essentially a cover story for Zionist advocacy abandons Jewish communities to violence, and prevents the kind of serious policy response that could actually reduce harm.
The people killed at Bondi Beach were not symbols in a geopolitical argument. They were not collateral in a debate about international law or protest rights. They were Jews who had gathered to celebrate Hanukkah. Their deaths — and those of the other diaspora Jews killed last year — demand better than either cynical exploitation or willful minimization by either side.
The Tel Aviv University report, to its considerable credit, refuses both postures. It counts the dead honestly. It honestly holds the Israeli government accountable. It refuses to let anti-Jewish violence be erased, and it also refuses to let that violence be used as a political instrument. In doing so, it models the intellectual honesty that this moment desperately requires.
The question is whether anyone on either side of this exhausting divide is willing to listen.
The post Who’s responsible for deadly antisemitism? Everyone will hate the answer appeared first on The Forward.
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Report: US, Israel Preparing for Resumptions of Strikes Against Iran
US President Donald Trump speaks during an event to sign a memorandum in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, DC, US, May 5, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Evan Vucci
i24 News – The United States and Israel are engaged in intense preparations — the largest since the cease-fire took effect — for the possible resumption of attacks against Iran as early as next week, the New York Times reported Saturday citing two Middle East officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Meanwhile, the Israeli Mako News reported Israeli official sources as saying that US President Donald Trump is expected to convene his closest team of advisors in the next 24 hours to make a final decision on the Iran matter. Israel estimates that a decision on military action may be made very soon, the report added.
According to NYT, should Trump decide to resume military strikes, options include more aggressive raids targeting Iranian military and infrastructure targets, US officials said.
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Trump Says Xi Agrees Iran Must Open Strait, But No Sign China Will Weigh In
US President Donald Trump participates in events at the Great Hall of the People and does a greeting with the President of the People’s Republic of China Xi Jinping May 14, 2026, in Beijing China during a trip focused on trade, regional security, and strengthening bilateral ties between the world’s two largest economies. Photo: Kenny Holston/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
US President Donald Trump said Chinese President Xi Jinping had agreed Tehran must reopen the Strait of Hormuz, though China gave no indication it would weigh in.
Flying back from Beijing on Friday after two days of talks with Xi, Trump said he was considering whether to lift US sanctions on Chinese oil companies buying Iranian oil. China is the biggest buyer of Iranian oil.
“I’m not asking for any favors because when you ask for favors, you have to do favors in return,” Trump said when asked by a reporter on Air Force One whether Xi had made a firm commitment to put pressure on the Iranians to reopen the strait.
Xi did not comment on his discussions with Trump about Iran, although China’s foreign ministry criticized the war, calling it a conflict “which should never have happened, has no reason to continue.”
‘WE WANT THE STRAITS OPEN’
Iran has effectively shut the strait, which carried one-fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas supply before the US and Israel launched attacks on February 28. The disruption to shipping has caused the biggest oil supply crisis in history, pushing up oil prices.
Ebrahim Azizi, who heads the Iranian parliament’s national security committee, said on Saturday that Tehran had prepared a mechanism to manage traffic through the strait along a designated route that would be unveiled soon.
Azizi said only commercial vessels and parties cooperating with Iran would benefit, and that fees would be collected for specialized services provided under the mechanism.
Thousands of Iranians were killed in the US and Israeli airstrikes. Thousands more have been killed in Lebanon in fighting between Israel and the Iran-backed group Hezbollah, though Israel and Lebanon agreed on Friday to a 45-day extension of a ceasefire that has tamped down the conflict there.
The US paused its attacks last month but began a port blockade. As of Saturday, 78 commercial ships had been redirected and four disabled to ensure compliance with the blockade, the US military said.
Tehran, which carried out strikes against Israel, US bases and Gulf states after the war began, has said it will not unblock the strait until the US ends its blockade. Trump has threatened to resume attacks if Iran does not agree to a deal.
“We don’t want them to have a nuclear weapon, we want the straits open,” Trump said in Beijing, alongside Xi.
Iran, which has long denied it intends to build a nuclear weapon, has refused to end nuclear research or relinquish its hidden stockpile of enriched uranium.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said Tehran had received messages from the US indicating Washington was willing to continue talks.
Pakistan has been mediating between Washington and Tehran. Iranian news agency Nournews said Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni had held “detailed” discussions with his visiting Pakistani counterpart on Iran-Pakistan relations and the prospects for resuming peace talks, but gave no details.
TRUMP LOSING PATIENCE
Trump, who told Fox News’ “Hannity” program in an interview aired on Thursday that he was losing patience with Iran, said Tehran “should make a deal.”
Oil prices rose around 3 percent to around $109 a barrel on Friday [O/R] on concerns about a lack of progress in resolving the conflict.
Talks on ending the war, which has become a liability for Trump ahead of US congressional elections in November, have been on hold since last week when Iran and the US each rejected the other’s most recent proposals.
Araqchi said on Friday that Iran would welcome Chinese input, adding that Tehran was trying to give diplomacy a chance but did not trust the US, which has curtailed previous rounds of talks by launching air strikes.
When the US and Israel launched their attacks on Iran at the end of February, they said one of their aims was to weaken the authorities so Iranians could topple the government.
There has been little sign of organized dissent in Iran during the war, and rights groups say the government has cracked down heavily on its opponents.
Iran’s judiciary said on Saturday that 39 people had been executed for collaborating with Israeli or US spy agencies, or taking part in “terror” or armed unrest, since the war started, the judiciary’s news agency Mizan reported.
It said 36 “medium-level” dissidents had received long prison sentences.
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Tens of Thousands March in London in Separate Immigration, Pro‑Palestinian Protests
Protesters take part in a “Unite the Kingdom” rally organised by British anti-immigration activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, also known as Tommy Robinson, in London, Britain, May 16, 2026. REUTERS/Hannah McKay
Tens of thousands of people marched through central London on Saturday in two separate protests – one against high levels of immigration and another in support of Palestinians.
Police deployed 4,000 officers, including reinforcements from outside the capital, and pledged “the most assertive possible use of our powers” in what they called their biggest public order operation in years.
By 1200 GMT, shortly after both marches started, police said they had made 11 arrests for a range of offenses. They had earlier forecast turnout of at least 80,000.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Friday accused organizers of the Unite the Kingdom march of “peddling hate and division, plain and simple.”
The march was organized by anti-Islam activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, known as Tommy Robinson. The government barred 11 people it described as “foreign far-right agitators” from entering Britain to address the protest.
A previous protest led by Robinson in September drew around 150,000 people, police said, and featured a video address by US tech billionaire Elon Musk. More than 20 people were arrested, and police are still seeking more than 50 suspects.
MARCHERS WAVE BRITISH AND ENGLISH FLAGS
On Saturday, Robinson supporters gathered in central London, waving mainly British and English flags.
“I think that too much migration – not migration, but too much migration – is causing a lot of problems, upsetting a delicate balance here,” said Allison Parr, who also criticized net-zero environmental policies.
Annual net migration approached 900,000 in 2022 and 2023, but fell back to around 200,000 last year after tighter work visa rules.
Concern over immigration – including the arrival of asylum seekers on small boats – has weighed on Starmer’s popularity and boosted the right-wing Reform UK party, whose leader Nigel Farage has distanced himself from Robinson.
Some protesters chanted abuse about Starmer.
Robinson, who has convictions for assault, stalking and other offenses, urged supporters this week to act peacefully in what he billed as “the greatest patriotic display the world has ever seen.”
Earlier this year, he traveled to the US, where he met a State Department official and addressed supporters about what he called “the dangers of Islam” and “the Islamification of Great Britain.”
Census data showed 6.5 percent of people in England and Wales identified as Muslim in 2021, up from 4.9 percent in 2011.
PRO-PALESTINIAN PROTESTERS MARK NAKBA DAY
Nearby, pro-Palestinian demonstrators held a march to mark Nakba Day, commemorating Palestinians’ loss of land in the 1948 war that followed the creation of Israel. “Nakba” means catastrophe in Arabic.
The march also drew those opposing the Unite the Kingdom rally, alongside predominantly Palestinian flags.
London has recently seen a spate of arson attacks on Jewish sites, and two Jewish men were stabbed last month in an incident being treated as terrorism.
Police said repeated large pro-Palestinian marches – 33 since the Hamas-led attack on Israel in October 2023 – had left many Jewish people feeling too intimidated to enter central London.
While protesters held a range of views, police said they routinely made arrests for racially and religiously aggravated public order offenses, inciting racial hatred or supporting proscribed organizations.
The government said police would arrest protesters who chanted “globalize the intifada,” a reference to Palestinian uprisings against Israel that many British Jews view as inciting antisemitism.
Some protesters on Saturday chanted “Death to the IDF”, referring to the Israeli army – language that police said had previously been a reason for arrests when aimed at Jewish people.