“Anti-Semitism” is going the way of racism—repeated so often that it loses its pejorative effect. From James Rushmore at libertarianinstitute.org:
In a viral interview in May, Piers Morgan spoke with Tzipi Hotovely, the Israeli ambassador to the United Kingdom. In a highly revealing exchange, Morgan asked Hotovely if she knew how many children Israel had killed over the course of its genocidal war in the Gaza Strip:
Morgan: “Do you know how many Hamas terrorists you’ve killed and how many children you’ve killed? Do you know those two numbers?”
Hotovely: “I know the numbers that came from the IDF. I know the numbers that came from a very, very established think tank…We killed 30,000 terrorists in phase one of the war. Since the war is back, I don’t have the numbers, but let me tell you one thing. We never target civilians, so this question is irrelevant.”
Morgan: “How many children have you killed?”
Hotevely: “Piers, Israel is not killing children. Israel is not killing children. Hamas is using them as human shields.”
Morgan: Israel is killing children every single day. Why pretend otherwise?”
Hotevely: “Piers, this is a blood libel you’re putting on Israel.”
Let’s go ahead and assume, for the sake of argument, that Hotovely is telling the truth. Even if every single child killed in Gaza had been used as a human shield, would that absolve Israel of responsibility for killing them? Of course not.
Back in March 2024, a former ranking IDF officer told Haaretz that the Israeli military was engaged in a form of combat that was “unusually wasteful.” He accused the IDF of “attacking innumerable targets, without asking whether it’s worth attacking them,” using artillery “in places where it’s not really obligatory,” and “demolishing everything before entering.” What’s more, the officer argued that, by causing less destruction, ground forces would have ended up spending less time in Gaza, thereby exposing themselves to fewer casualties.
Israel is a developed country with a high-tech weapons industry. In the year following the October 7 attack, it received $17.9 billion in security assistance from the United States. Israel has the ability to minimize civilian casualties; it chooses not to. In the minds of Israeli officials, the civilian population of Gaza is expendable. As a result, it’s justifiable to kill tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians, especially when their lives are deemed less valuable than those of IDF service members. According to people like Tzipi Hotovely, the blame for such casualties always rests with Hamas, even when it’s Israel that carries out the death blow. And anybody who disagrees is motivated by anti-semitism.
“The Jew is immunized against all dangers: One may call him a scoundrel, parasite, swindler, profiteer, it all runs off him like water off a raincoat. But call him a Jew and you will be astonished at how he recoils, how injured he is, how he suddenly shrinks back: “I’ve been found out”.”
― Joseph Goebbels, The Complete Diary Entries – 1923 to 1945