A new wave of antisemitism threatens to rock an already unstable world

History is flashing warnings to the world.

When societies are in trouble, they sometimes show signs of antisemitism, which can lead to extremism and violence.

The global hatred directed against Jews has intensified due to Israel’s response in Gaza to the terrorist murders of Israeli civilians.

Recent antisemitism shows the pressures on stability and democracy in America and Western Europe.

The Hamas attacks against Jews that killed 1,400, predominantly civilians – have started a sequence of events that have left Jewish people around the world feeling threatened. The Israeli government’s actions in Gaza have destroyed Palestinian communities. This risks reducing sympathy for Israel and potentially increasing harassment of Jewish people. A recent anti-Jewish riot in Russia’s Dagestan region highlights the dangers of Putin’s approach towards Hamas.

In the United States, there is a climate of growing fear.

Jewish day schools have canceled classes. The synagogues are locked. They left the Jewish community wondering when and where they could ever feel safe due to the hatred on social media.

Rising hate is tangible. It’s almost unbelievable that Jewish Americans at Cornell University in rural New York were too scared to eat together in 2023. Yet it’s the case after death threats were posted online. Tensions were already high after a Cornell professor said he was initially “exhilarated” over the Hamas attacks at a pro-Palestinian event because the group had changed the balance of power. He later apologized for his choice of words. Police Monday stepped up patrols, and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, traveled to campus to vow that “we will not tolerate threats, or hatred or antisemitism.” But a feeling of fear pervades Cornell, said Molly Goldstein, co-president of the Cornell Center for Jewish Living. “Jewish students on campus right now are unbelievably terrified for their lives,” she told CNN. “I never expected this to happen on my university campus.”

The frightening online threats at Cornell, which are just part of the spate of antisemitism exacerbated by the fallout of the Gaza war, have many Jews wondering if their safety can be guaranteed in the United States — let alone in Israel, where the attacks shattered the illusion of security for the Jewish people. Republicans and some Democrats are warning that campuses are being influenced by far-left radicalism due to pro-Palestinian protests.

A Beverly Hills home belonging to a Holocaust survivor was vandalized with antisemitic graffiti. In one of the most shocking scenes, a crowd of people stormed an airport in Russia’s predominantly Muslim region of Dagestan, where a flight from Israel arrived on Sunday, chanting, “There is no place for child killers in Dagestan.” These are scenes with chilling echoes of the 1940s – a decade of destruction and carnage that has already been evoked in the last 18 months by Russia’s onslaught against civilians in Ukraine. Biden is concerned over rising antisemitism as the administration takes action.

Nearly a century after the rise of Nazism and the beginning of the Holocaust, which killed at least 6 million European Jews, descendants of the dead are yet again being threatened because of who they are, their history, and how they worship. Nations that often vowed “Never Again” at Holocaust memorial events now face a responsibility to tackle antisemitism at home, just as they were forced to mobilize against anti-Muslim rhetoric, violence, and prejudice after the September 11 terror attacks in 2001 by al Qaeda – which is also still a threat today, as President Joe Biden noted in his Oval Office address on October 20, after returning from a trip to Israel. “We reject all forms of hate, whether against Muslims, Jews, or anyone. That’s what great nations do, and we are a great nation,” he said.

Biden on Monday unveiled new measures to tackle antisemitism on college campuses, and senior officials underscored the need to combat anti-Jewish hate. John Kirby from the National Security Council said on CNN that it is dangerous and unacceptable, both globally and in the United States.

The need is great since FBI Director Christopher Wray warned Tuesday that antisemitism is reaching “historic levels” in the US.

Wray stated in a Senate hearing that the Jewish American community, comprising just 2.4% of the population, accounts for about 60% of religious-based hate crimes, according to our statistics.

But efforts to combat the situation with added security may struggle while the horror in the Middle East continues to unfold.

Israel rejects the idea that its action in Gaza is indiscriminate, saying that, unlike Hamas in its terror attack, it does not seek to target civilians, and it blames the militant group for embedding its military infrastructure in highly populated areas in Gaza. The military strikes have caused many civilian casualties, and the Gazans have nowhere to go due to a humanitarian crisis. Israeli tactics were questioned again on Tuesday when an attack caused a massive blast at the Jabalya refugee camp in northern Gaza, resulting in many casualties.

Ideally, criticism of Israel’s military response should only be directed at its government and not impact Jews globally, as many of them disagree with the government’s hardline stance.

But in practice, antisemitism could grow more pervasive in the coming weeks.

A widening problem in the United States

In recent years, antisemitism has often been driven in the United States by far-right groups. The hate of White Nationalism was encapsulated by the haunting chant by marchers in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, “Jews will not replace us.” Former President Donald Trump, meanwhile, played into an antisemitic trope by suggesting that American Jews were plagued by dual loyalties to the US and Israel and that they should be more grateful to him for his policies on the Jewish state. But the reaction to the deepening crisis in Israel and Gaza has shown that antisemitism is also boiling on the far left. In the US, some pro-Palestinian protesters seemed to support Hamas, a group the US considers a terrorist organization. They have accused Hamas of oppressing Palestinians in Gaza and being involved in Israeli massacres.

Academic research indicates that antisemitism tends to rise during crisis periods in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This suggests that it is a latent force below the surface in US society and only needs the spur of an event to erupt. The Anti-Defamation League, for example, has cataloged a 400% increase in antisemitic incidents in the US since October 7. That said, organizations like the ADL also charted rising hate toward American Jews in recent years during a comparative period of calm in the Middle East, suggesting that domestic forces and the rise of extreme rhetoric and violence-fueled hate are also driving the problem. The organization detailed 3,697 antisemitic incidents in the US in 2022, up 36% year-on-year and the highest on record.

Still, the increasingly fraught and divided politics in Western nations already rocked by extremism makes the nuanced handling of the Israeli-Palestinian issue nearly impossible. Toxic dialogue on social media and a flood of inaccurate information worsens the problem. At the same time, partisans predisposed to support Israel or Palestinians often equate the actions of Hamas and the Israeli government with civilians who have no control over them.

Alongside the threats and harassment experienced by Jews in recent weeks, Americans were also traumatized by the shocking fatal stabbing of a 6-year-old Chicago boy of Palestinian descent, allegedly by his family’s landlord, which the Department of Justice is investigating as a hate crime. The senseless killing was a reminder of the murderous reach of historic antagonisms in the Middle East. The shocking fatal stabbing of a 6-year-old Chicago boy of Palestinian descent, allegedly by his family’s landlord, underscored the magnitude of the region’s massive human tragedy. The Department of Justice is investigating it as a hate crime.

Middle East history is a moral maze.

The Israeli-Palestinian question is one of such historical, geographic, and political complexity that it is easy for domestic politicians in the West to latch onto any one aspect of the conflict as they seek to advance their political ends. Each murder, war, massacre, or conflict sows the seeds of its successors in the region.

That reality is reflected in the domestic politics spawned by the conflict in the US and Europe.

Since the attacks in Israel, conservative media has often accused protesters who back Palestinian rights and worry about civilian casualties in the packed urban areas and refugee camps in Gaza of supporting terrorists. In the past, Israel’s most committed supporters have repeatedly and inaccurately tried to paint any criticism of Israel by politicians or journalists as antisemitism. Recent calls for an immediate ceasefire have raised doubts about Israel’s right to self-defense.

Meanwhile, individuals who hold antisemitic views often perceive that all Jews, by definition, bear some responsibility for what they perceive as the denial of Palestinian statehood or the implementation of hardline settlement-building policies on Palestinian land in the West Bank by successive Israeli governments.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Monday tried to pinpoint the moment at which opposition to Israeli policies crosses into antisemitism. The New York Democrat expressed disgust and fear over the news from Cornell University, emphasizing that the threats were not isolated incidents. “We must condemn all forms of hate. Nobody denies that people of goodwill can have disagreements about the conflict in the Middle East, but the red line is crossed when these disagreements lead to violence or threats of violence.”

Americans have learned their country is not immune to political turmoil and hatred. After all, the United States recently suffered a mob attack on Congress fueled by false claims of a stolen election.

Antisemitism is no exception.

“We didn’t anticipate these events happening in America, but it’s possible,” said Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, on CNN Max.

It’s terrifying to see a mob in Russia hunting for Jews at an airport. Equally terrifying is the discovery of posts on general message boards encouraging violence against Jews by a Cornell student.

“This is antisemitism; this is threatening Jews worldwide.”

History does not end. It merely slumbers, then repeats itself.

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