The Friend of My Enemy

Posted on December 19, 2025 | Leave a comment

(First published at Israelnationalnews.com)

There is a well-known and ancient aphorism that affirms that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Two countries that are rivals can still unite to challenge and overcome a mutual adversary that threatens them both. Thus, during World War II, the United States and United Kingdom joined forces with the USSR (after Germany breached their non-aggression pact) in order to defeat the Nazis. Shortly after the war ended, the enmity between the erstwhile allies resumed in full force and the Cold War began.

What about a corollary to that hoary principle? How does one characterize “the friend of my enemy,” or in our case, enemies? Is the friend still a friend? Does the friend become an enemy? Is there an intermediate stage – can a country become a frenemy?

This is our new reality, as Israel’s closest friend and ally in the world – the United States – curries favor with Qatar and Turkey, arguably two of Israel’s most implacable strategic foes in the world today. It is impossible not to conclude that those two countries are our enemies, and this despite Israel’s longtime willingness to ignore the provocations of both and to dream of the past (Turkey) or better days ahead (Qatar).

We should not delude ourselves any longer. Qatar has for quite some time been the sponsors of Hamas and other terrorist groups. It literally hosted and shielded Hamas’ leadership before, during, and after the October 7 massacre, and Qatari wealth has sustained Hamas despite its designation as a terrorist organization. Qatari money has allegedly fueled the anti-Jewish campus unrest in the United States the last several years. Their recent distancing from Hamas was solely the result of Israel’s attack on Hamas’ Qatar headquarters this past September, a shot across the bow that, among other things, informed the Qataris that the jig was up – and even induced them to pressure Hamas to free all the living Israeli hostages then held captive by Hamas.

Israelis still remember the Turkey that was the first (and for decades, only) Muslim country that recognized Israel. That bond was severed when Recep Tayyip Erdoğan became prime minister in 2003 and then president (apparently for life unless there is a coup) in 2014. Turkey before Erdoğan was a breath of fresh air in the Middle East. His ascension to power and his commitment to the tenets of radical Islam immediately soured relations, although Israel was slow to realize that and our diplomacy remained trapped in the fantasy world of the 1980’s. Nothing Erdoğan’s Turkey could do – supporting Hamas, dispatching the Mavi Marmara, repeatedly condemning Israel on the world stage, calling our government “Nazis” and our prime minister “Hitler” – none of that dispelled the Israeli illusion that this was still the same Turkey that exports dates and welcomes Israeli tourists, and that we are just a few conversations away from reviving that halcyon era.

Today, Turkey’s influence in our region is especially nefarious, and even in Israel itself. It designated its illegal consulate in Jerusalem, our capital city, as its “embassy to Palestine” – and we do nothing about it. Through a variety of social service, educational, and cultural organizations it sponsors in Jerusalem, funded by Qatar, it propagates radical Islam, rejection of Israel, and support for terror – and we do nothing about it. It routinely insults us, denies our legitimacy, and mocks our sovereignty – and we do nothing about it. The fantasy about the old Turkey even precipitated an apology from our prime minister after the Mavi Marmara incident. In other words, Turkey sent a hostile craft meant to break our blockade and supply our genocidal enemy in Gaza – and we had to apologize.

Now, the United States is friends or at least allies with these two of our enemies, and the price of that friendship has not been the diminution of their hostility towards Israel. Turkey and Qatar have captivated the US and it is not because of the shared values of those three countries – unless the primary value is money. These antagonists have infiltrated the US in different ways – Turkey as a longtime member of NATO serving as a counterforce to the Russians, and Qatar by spreading tens of billions of dollars of its oil revenues to buy influence in universities, politics, think tanks, school boards, and cultural institutions. Qatar has upped the ante in the current administration by engaging in sweetheart business deals with Steve Witkoff, President Trump’s ambassador for all things, and with Trump family members, and promising (although not yet delivering) investments in US infrastructure reported to be a trillion dollars.

Although the US could easily detach itself from Turkey, whose weak economy is obscured by its bellicose rhetoric and grandiose ambitions, it could not easily disconnect from the Qataris, so extensive is their influence in the United States. Qatari money is spread across numerous industries such as real estate, energy, aviation, and technology, and most reprehensible is their funding of dozens of American universities, including study programs which extol the virtues of Islam and denigrate Judaism and Israel. Yes, money talks, and three American universities – Georgetown, Carnegie Mellon, and Northwestern – have received more than two trillion dollars to fund their campuses in Doha, Qatar.

The influence of Qatari money on American university campuses, and its connection to the rampant Jew hatred and anti-American activism that have erupted there in recent years, is being investigated. But the linkage should be unsurprising, as well the accompanying decline in support for Israel in the last few years among younger Americans.

Undoubtedly, Qatar and Turkey are masterful at playing the double game, promoting the interests of radical Israel under the pretense of befriending America and serving America’s interests. This should have been made clear to all through the machinations of Qatar and Turkey during the prolonged hostage negotiations, when both countries pretended to be intermediaries and peace seekers. In fact, their enmity to Israel was blatant. Even their supposed neutrality to Hamas was and is a moral obscenity. If part of their current game is currying favor with President Trump through money (including a promise of a new Air Force One, which has not yet been fulfilled) and overblown flattery, then it is working. And if a long-term Arab goal has always been to distance the US from Israel, then that hasn’t happened, but it is clearly on their agenda.

Well, how do we react when our strongest ally sees itself as friends with our enemies? We can pretend to our detriment that perhaps those enemies are no longer enemies because they are friends with our friend. That would be absurd, which is not to say unlikely given our diplomatic dithering. But it should be clear that one might be a friend of my enemy but that does not make that enemy my friend. An enemy remains an enemy because of divergent interests and objectives, and hostile actions. Friendship with a third party will not change that.

We cannot compete with Qatari money. Trump is a sucker for flattery and has been played by multiple countries – Russia, China, Syria, and others – but we should not play that unsavory game more than is necessary, such as calling Trump “the best friend Israel has ever had in the White House,” which is true but does not preclude Trump pursuing American interests first, as he should. We pretend to our detriment that US and Israeli interests are always aligned.

What we can do is try to minimize the impact of that so-called friendship by emphasizing our shared interests with the United States, and especially by calling out Qatari and Turkish actions that conflict with US interests, of which there are not a few. Qatar has announced it will not fund Gaza’s rebuilding, despite promises made to the Americans. Both countries have long flirted with America’s global adversaries and skillfully play one off against the other. The presence of a US Air Force base in Qatar serves one US interest but means that the US literally defends Qatar from all hostile elements, something that makes American troops targets which should trouble America Firsters. Israel has never sought that type of on the ground protection, and it is a mistake to allow an American base in Kiryat Gat.

Under Qatari and Turkish influence, the US will try to force Israel into accepting the disappearance of the deceased hostage Ran Gvili, diluting our insistence that Hamas be disarmed and disabled, speed up Gazan reconstruction, and advance our withdrawal (again, for the eighth time) from Gaza. None of this is in Israel’s interest, unless our goal is a few months or years of relative tranquility as the enemy prepares for the next, and even deadlier, round of terror and atrocities.

Trump has good instincts and is unpredictable because of his tendency to engage in bold actions. But he also has a short attention span, is easily distracted, and enjoys more the good PR from claiming diplomatic triumphs than the reality on which his wishes are implausibly imposed which is always less auspicious. Hence, the series of “wars” he has ended which have not actually ended – whether in Congo, Thailand, Gaza, or the Middle East. The day of agreement concerns him more than the day after an agreement. He lacks the tenacity and patience to see his vision through or to ensure it endures. That is why he urges Netanyahu to “take the win,” even if there is no win to be taken. It is akin to Senator George Aiken’s famous quote (he did not actually say it) in 1966 that the US in Vietnam should “declare victory and go home.” But Gaza is home, part of the land of Israel, and the enemy’s objective is to survive, and during the respite rebuild, rearm, and plan for the next attack. Now that Hamas is on the ropes and Gaza is devastated, we would be foolish to allow true victory in that tiny territory to slip away.

And we would have to be insane to allow the introduction of troops from Turkey and Qatar into Gaza, knowing full well that they will do little else than facilitate their plans for our demise. Their forces would not be Trojan horses but rather the enemy itself, armed and dangerous and in plain sight. Qatar has infiltrated the highest levels of the American government and it should be sobering for us to realize the outsized influence Qatar now has on American foreign policy, including Trump’s pronouncements. It puts paid to the boring cliché prevalent among anti-Israel Americans that Israel controls US foreign policy, although it will not stop our haters from professing it. Every administration statement, including leaks to journalists from “senior officials,” has to be filtered through the prism of Qatari influence.

In truth, it is Trump who should “take the win,” the win being the release of all the living hostages at once which would not have happened without him. Everything else is smoke and mirrors. If we do not take advantage of Hamas’ current vulnerability, we will be left dealing with a resurgent terror network and an explosive Gaza long after Trump leaves office, and under much less favorable conditions for us to respond.

As always, Israel is remiss is not clearly defining our interests and sticking to them, in not establishing red lines and proclaiming their indelibility. Ruling out Turkish troops in Gaza is a god start but Qatari forces are no better. We, too, are desperate for friends and allies but we should be forthright in recognizing that our enemies are not just those who physically attack us but also those who subsidize the attackers. Israelis too have been seduced by the allure of Qatari business and investments. That the US is unduly swayed by Qatar and Turkey is probably inevitable, given the US interest in countering the growing sway of China and Russia, but it need not be permanent. Those countries’ influence on the Trump administration is troubling but not exclusive. We too have influence – and that influence is enhanced when our interests are unambiguously projected and our shared values are transparent and transmitted.

The reborn Jewish commonwealth after the miracle Chanukah foundered because of, among other reasons, ill-considered alliances with foreign countries that gradually undermined our sovereignty in the land of Israel. Having learned from our long and providential history, we know better. Or do we?

Happy Chanukah!

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Chanukah: Ancient Challenges

Posted on December 15, 2025 | 2 comments

(First published in the December issue of Jewish Image magazine)

It is not widely known but Jerusalem is at the center of each of the Jewish holidays. In addition to the three pilgrimage festivals, a second day was added to Rosh Hashana to facilitate the Temple service in case the precise appearance of the New Moon perplexed the authorities. The Temple service was at the heart of Yom Kippur and Jerusalem celebrates Purim on the same day it was celebrated in Shushan, one day after most of the Jewish world rejoices.

But on no holiday does Jerusalem feature as prominently in its history and observance as it does on Chanukah. The miracle of Chanukah – the burning of the Temple Menorah for eight days – occurred in Jerusalem and the liberation of Jerusalem was considered the apex of the military victory even though the war itself continued for another two decades. And there is much that happened on Chanukah that can guide us today as the challenges that bedeviled the Jewish people then are prevalent, not to mention, exasperating, in modern times.

The story of Chanukah almost 2200 years ago took place against the backdrop of three major crises. The Jewish world then had to wrestle with a foreign enemy, internal strife, and a spiritual malaise that threatened the continuity of Jewish life.

The Syrian Greeks led by a descendant of one of the generals of Alexander the Great captured the land of Israel and the Temple itself and embarked on a campaign of coerced Hellenization of the Jewish population. The Temple was defiled with a statue of Zeus, service in the Temple was summarily halted, and the Syrians attempted to force the Jews to abandon Torah study, circumcision, and other fundamental commandments in the hope that Jews would assimilate into the Greek culture as all other conquered nations had done.  Additionally, the Syrians exercised hegemony over the land of Israel and the Jews were subjugated in their own land.

Most Jews succumbed to the allures of Hellenism, embraced their conquerors, and fiercely opposed the rebellion of the Hasmoneans. In a real yet frightening sense, the war of Chanukah was as much a civil war among Jews as it was a rebellion against the foreign enemy. Jews were quite willing to lend support to the enemy and too many did not hesitate to abandon the particulars of Jewish observance and identity in order to integrate into the Hellenist culture that had swept the world.

None of these predicaments are unknown to us today. The Jewish state, and Jerusalem itself, hosts a large Arab population that does not necessarily perceive its destiny as identical to that of Israeli Jews. There are hostile foreign elements within Jerusalem – chapters of Hamas, Turkish anti-Israel organizations, Qatar money funding a variety of nefarious activities, and European consulates that operate in Jerusalem as embassies to the Palestinians in defiance of Israeli law and thus threatening Israeli sovereignty in the Holy City, including that of Greece, of all countries, our ancient tormentor.

The internal disharmony in Israel over the last few years, which itself precipitated the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023, was mostly papered over by the war but has now slowly re-emerged. It mostly centers on starkly different, even diametrically opposed, visions of Jewish destiny, the meaning, importance, and even continued relevance of a Jewish state, and competing notions of Israeli and Jewish identity.

To be sure, the good news is that the state of affairs when the rebellion of Chanukah began was far more precarious than it is today. We have endured much as a people, weathered conquests, expulsions, exiles, pogroms, and Holocausts, only to return to our land – as promised in the Bible – and reestablish thereon the third Jewish commonwealth. Jews for the last two millennia could only dream of an independent Jewish state in which Torah study is abundant, the observance of mitzvot is woven into the societal structure, a Jewish army can rise up against our foes in righteous self-defense, and Chanukah is a national celebration. Indeed, despite all our differences and the superficial discord, somehow, we have created and maintained a thriving society, prosperous and caring, boisterous but determined, tolerant and broadminded, embattled but audacious, and in many respects, the envy of the world.

We should never ignore the gifts we have been given nor trivialize the opportunities with which we have been blessed. The Jewish population of Jerusalem has not been as sizable as it is today since the destruction of the Temple over nineteen centuries ago. The challenges that we face today – both domestic and foreign – pale before the challenges we overcame throughout history.

That is because the great light of Chanukah still illuminates our way forward and reminds us of the great days of faith, unity, and redemption ahead.

Happy Chanukah to all!

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Pardon Me

Posted on December 5, 2025 | 2 comments

(First published at Israelnationalnews.com)

Prime Minister Netanyahu’s official request for a pardon from President Herzog – which would immediately end his show trials – has not unexpectedly unleashed a typical storm from leftists whose sole purpose in life for the last fifteen years, it seems, has been to topple him from office. But it has also provoked some opposition from Netanyahu’s supporters, and for legitimate reasons.

A pardon would provide some measure of finality to the absurdity that has pursued the PM for over a decade, with his indictment already six years old and his trial not scheduled to end for several more years. Even if he was not the head of government having weightier issues on his plate, the prolonged trial is a form of Chinese water torture designed not to elicit the truth (no trial is) or justice (presumably the goal) but rather to harass him out of office and to break him psychologically. To his credit, all that has failed.

On balance, a pardon would be better for Israel as a country than for Netanyahu as a person. For the country, it would end at least one legal farce of the many that have exposed the abominable corruption of the judicial establishment (civilian and military), the police investigators, and the courts at the highest level. It would deprive us of the truth of how various individuals have created an unaccountable and undemocratic fiefdom that effectively rules the country and can intimidate objectors into silence. These include the Government’s putative “Legal Advisors” who act as a law unto themselves and aggregate power they do not have and are shielded in their usurpation of democracy by the Supreme Court which similarly perceives itself as unbounded and unfettered by anything other than their self-serving construction of what a secular Israel needs. Add to them prosecutors and police investigators who have been credibly accused of fabricating evidence, inventing crimes, and then taking refuge in the fortress wall of silence that protects the establishment.

We now know that the prosecutors even went as far as badgering and threatening Netanyahu’s closest staff into offering them “anything criminal against him, anything,” any negative information at all, desperate as they were to indict him for something and so tie him up in legal knots that he could not run for office and win. The interminable investigation against the PM was more than a fishing expedition; it was corroboration of the Communist police chief Lavrentiy Beria’s boast to Stalin, “give me the man, and I will find the crime.”

For Netanyahu, the grant of a pardon lacks a full expression of justice, although it does spare him the expenses of an ongoing trial as well as enables him to focus on the affairs of state for which he has been repeatedly elected. It would be used as election propaganda against him. He would not earn the vindication against the accusations of his tormentors that he would through a complete acquittal. However, it is highly implausible that the court – a tool of the judicial oligarchy that is one of the two last refuges of secular Israel (the other being the mainstream media) – will not convict him on some count of the indictment, such as the amorphous “breach of trust.” All that takes is conviction on any count by two of the PM’s three judges eager to vindicate the judicial establishment and keen on advancing their careers beyond the District Court level.

It is true that no person is above the law but no person should be under it either – the victim of a targeted prosecution aimed at manipulating the politics of the country. In most of the civilized world, indeed, prosecutions of the head of government cannot take place while the leader is serving; such distracts from his primary tasks and harms the nation itself. That is why Trump was prosecuted when he was out of office – and all his cases pending when he won election were dismissed “in the interest of justice.” The indictment of a sitting prime minister – even where a country’s laws do not preclude that – should reflect grave offenses that affect the common weal and that are morally intolerable. Netanyahu’s indictment does not come close to that threshold of seriousness. Essentially, he is accused of several quid pro quos, in which neither the quid nor the quo occurred or mattered.

Beyond hiding the crimes of the left, a pardon would unduly strengthen Donald Trump who inappropriately and (typically) brazenly demanded it in public from Israel’s President. Trump, for whom everything is transactional, will want something down the road from Netanyahu that will not be in our interest, some concession that will facilitate another “deal,” whether of the century, the millennium, or the inevitably forthcoming “deal of eternity.”

For Israel as a country, a pardon would remove one of the thorniest elements of national discord, even as it would in the short term enrage the perennial protesters who have been protesting against Netanyahu for as long as Netanyahu has been winning elections. It will not be an easy call for President Herzog, deeply embedded on the left and (who knows?) young enough to still be harboring political ambitions in the future. A pardon would infuriate and even obliterate Herzog’s potential base. His forthcoming decision will captivate Israelis for the next several months.

Herzog might try to split the difference – pardon the PM if he admits guilt to something, agrees to leave politics, or the like. None of that is reasonable, and if either of that was to happen, it could have happened years ago and spared us (and Netanyahu) the embarrassment of the incessant legal circus in which he has been center ring. Herzog may then assert that he tried – but Netanyahu (rightly) refused. That would be an abdication of Herzog’s responsibilities.

Rather than be guided by personal or populist sentiments, President Herzog should look to two pardon precedents.

The first is the Bus 300 affair from 1984, in which four Arab terrorists of an Egged bus en route to Ashkelon hijacked that bus with the intention of taking hostages its passengers and bringing them to Gaza. (“There is nothing new under the sun,” said King Shlomo.) Two terrorists were killed in a shootout near the Gaza city of Deir-el-Balah, and two were captured alive, interrogated, and then executed by the Shin Bet. No one would have shed a tear or been any wiser but for an infamous photograph that appeared in a newspaper Hadashot, published in defiance of the military censor through the New York Times, which showed one terrorist very much alive and walking, just a few minutes before he wasn’t.

 A scandal ensued, which ended several years later with no convictions of anyone involved, the resignations of the heads of the Shin Bet and the Attorney General, and pardons for all, including the Shin Bet agents responsible for the deaths of the terrorists in custody. It was President Chaim Herzog, father of our current president, who pardoned the offenders, after they were indicted but before they were tried, and all in the interests of justice and national security. None of the people charged admitted to any wrongdoing. Some of those involved later served as Cabinet Ministers and Knesset members.

The second, perhaps even more instructive and controversial case, was Gerald Ford’s 1974 pardon of Richard Nixon for all crimes related to Watergate (formally: for “all offenses… Richard Nixon has committed or may have committed” while he was president), exactly one month after Ford became President. Naturally, this unleashed a firestorm of angry protests from Nixon’s numerous, permanent, and irate enemies. Ford did it because, as he said, it was the right thing for the country. If Nixon were indicted, then, during the pendency of his case and even after, “ugly passions would again be aroused. And our people would again be polarized in their opinions. And the credibility of our free institutions of government would again be challenged at home and abroad.

Ford continued: “My conscience tells me clearly and certainly that I cannot prolong the bad dreams that continue to reopen a chapter that is closed. My conscience tells me that only I, as President, have the constitutional power to firmly shut and seal this book. My conscience tells me it is my duty, not merely to proclaim domestic tranquility but to use every means that I have to ensure it. I do believe that the buck stops here, that I cannot rely upon public opinion polls to tell me what is right. I do believe that right makes might and that if I am wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference. I do believe, with all my heart and mind and spirit, that I, not as President but as a humble servant of God, will receive justice without mercy if I fail to show mercy.”

Was Ford’s pardon of Nixon the right thing to do? Well, it polarized the United States, impaired Ford’s ability to govern, weakened his presidency, and arguably cost him the election in 1976. Yet, in 2001, the Kennedy family bestowed upon Gerald Ford its “Profile in Courage” award, with Senator Ted Kennedy, a fierce opponent of the pardon when it happened, declaiming that history had proven that Ford was correct in his decision.

It is worth noting that Nixon would have been charged with obstruction of justice, abuse of office, and other crimes, all of which related to the conduct of his presidency. Guilty or not, at least the charges would have related to something of substance, crimes, moral offenses, corruption, misuse of the presidency. Compare that to cigars, champagne, favorable media coverage (every politician’s dream), and we realize the surreal nightmare in which Netanyahu, and the people of Israel, has been immersed for many years now because of his political enemies and a justice system, which, far from being the world’s “gold standard,” has run amok, gone off the rails, and is not at all “a light unto the nations.”

Is this President Herzog a profile in courage? We shall find out.

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Just Because…

Posted on November 28, 2025 | 3 comments

(First published at Israelnationalnews.com)

It is high time we reconsider one of the most hackneyed clichés of our era – the one that claims that just because a person criticizes Israel does not mean he hates Jews. In its most concise form, it is the assertion that just because people are anti-Zionist does not mean they are anti-Jewish. It has become the most common defense of every anti-Semite in the world, at least for those who are looking for a defense.

This axiom has become so prevalent and harmful that we need to reformulate it. The truth is that just because people criticize Israel does not mean that they are not anti-Semites.

In fact, I would go as far as to say that anyone who criticizes Israel should be presumed to hate Israel and Jews. In legal terminology, let us call it a rebuttable presumption. We can safely assume that such people are anti-Semites, and if they challenge that conclusion, the burden of proof is on them. They must demonstrate love for Jews, notwithstanding their contempt for the Jewish state. And if they can’t, it speaks for itself. I would love to hear their explanations.

Part of the double standard, or really lack of any standards at all, pertaining to people’s views on Israel, is the attribution by these haters of their disdain for Israel to Israel’s government, to decisions of PM Netanyahu, or Smotrich, or Ben Gvir, or the bogeyman of their choice. It is not that anyone is above criticism; it is rather that the criticism usually contains some dismissal of Israel’s leadership as if they are unrepresentative of the people who keep electing them, as if the democratically-elected government of Israel is somehow illegitimate and therefore Israel by extension is illegitimate.

I am hard-pressed to think of a comparable example across the world. There are people who despise Trump or Biden or Obama or Putin or Macron or Kim Jung Il and yet do not question the legitimacy of the countries they lead (or led). Indeed, there is no other country on the planet whose “right to exist” is even a topic of discussion, much less negotiation. Certainly, no other country’s “right to exist” is considered a concession to be wrung from its enemies, if in fact that is even possible.

There are undeniable telltale signs of Jew hatred masquerading as anti-Zionism. Obviously, the protesters roiling American streets and harassing its Jews don’t just hate Israel and its right to exist but all Jews. Consider the following anomaly: the fabricated fear of “Islamophobia” rests on the assumption that all Muslims should not be blamed for acts of terror committed by some Muslims (even if most terror in the world is perpetrated by Muslims and has been for many decades now). And that is a reasonable assumption even if the other Muslims are never asked to denounce and repudiate Islamic terror. We even created a new term – Islamist – to distinguish between the good and bad Muslims.

Curious, then, that the same courtesy is not extended to Jews. Our enemies – that is, these critics – enthusiastically and indiscriminately blame all Jews wherever they are in the world for the alleged crimes of Israel. That is bad enough, patently hypocritical, and worse when we consider that Israel’s alleged crimes are not crimes at all.

Thus, the most execrable of the Jew hater who claims he is only anti-Israel will whitewash the Hamas atrocities of October 7 by claiming that Israel deserved it. In other words, Jews deserve to be slaughtered – but Jews do not deserve the right to defend ourselves. The slightly more refined among these haters will declare that the Hamas massacre, rapes, and kidnapping were wrong, and that Israel has the right to defend itself – but not in the way Israel did. They do not really go into details and are nonplused when asked for alternative means of fighting an urban war against an enemy that in gross violation of international law used (and uses) its own people as human shields and held innocent civilians as hostages. They have no answers but just know that Israel did not do it the right way. Yes, that is Jew hatred, and we should make no mistake about it.

Another clue as to the Jew hatred of these anti-Zionists is that “international law,” legal farce that it is, only works one way. It is a cudgel against Israel, and only Israel, and never seems to be applied to our enemies. Only Israel can violate international law, a shape-shifting doctrine that impugned every tactic Israel used and tried to rule out anything that could produce victory. And these foes accuse Israel of the very barbarism of which they are guilty – genocide (their fantasy solution to the Jewish problem) and starvation (which they inflicted on our hostages) – and moan about the devastation of Gaza (the bases and tunnels of terror built with billions of dollars of Western and Arab money).

And the most obvious evidence of the falsity of the claim that one can be anti-Zionist without being anti-Jewish is the utter rejection of Jewish nationalism. Zionism did not emerge in the abstract but is rooted in the Bible, which repeatedly addresses the covenant between G-d and the Jewish people that is founded on the Torah and the land of Israel. Any denial of the rights of the Jewish people to the Jewish homeland not only repudiates the Bible but seeks to nullify one of the pillars of Jewish life. If someone claimed to have no animus towards Jews or the Torah but simply disavows Shabbat, circumcision, Kashrut, acts of kindness, etc., we would not say such a person is just anti-Torah. Such a person is anti-Jewish because they take the essence of Jewishness and render it meaningless. One who says “I love Jews but hate everything Jews stand for” actually hates Jews.

Nevertheless, there is a weak point in this argument, a self-inflicted wound that has caused us endless suffering. One of these haters might retort that he does not hate Jews, only Israel, and use as proof random articles and op-eds in Haaretz, or reports on most of Israel’s news stations. We may not like Al-Jazeera or the BBC, and with good reason, but the most anti-Israel invective, the most vulgar vilifications of Israel, are found in Haaretz. Any anti-Israel, anti-Jewish media outlet could not do better than to simply cite passages from Haaretz and leave it at that. If all Tucker Carlson did was read Haaretz on the air every day, he would have more than enough material to satiate his most rabid listeners and vindicate his hateful views. Indeed, if our detractors just quoted Israel’s former, now-disgraced military prosecutor and her wild accusations against our soldiers, and just played her doctored video, they would have enough ammunition to besmirch Israel to their satisfaction.

Does that make Haaretz anti-Zionist and anti-Jewish also? Well, yes, it does, and there is not much we can do about it. It has its audience – those disappointed in an Israel that is Jewish in practice, not just in name; those horrified by an Israel that takes the Torah seriously; those disgusted by Jews who wish to settle all of Israel, from the river to the sea, and see that endeavor as a fulfillment of the prophetic vision of the Bible; and those confounded by Jews who believe that G-d really exists and that the Torah is true. It is really a simple metric: if I read an anti-Israel article in Haaretz in some other newspaper, would I deem it anti-Semitic? If the answer is yes, then that is the reality.

And what about other anti-Zionist Jews, Neturei Karta and their ilk, whose hatred of the State of Israel is based on a misguided reading of Jewish sources? They, too, should be held to the same standard, a rebuttable presumption that they are anti-Jewish as well. One obstacle they would have to overcome is their seeming contempt for any Jews who are not exactly like them, but if they can rebut this presumption by showing their love for Jews but not Israel, I am all ears.

To be sure, one can criticize Israel’s government and its prime minister, its army, its media, and its judiciary, and not be guilty of Jew hatred – but from a place of love, a place from which the legitimacy of the country is not challenged. Like it or not – and I don’t always like it – PM Netanyahu has found his way to power repeatedly, through free and fair elections. If anything, his waffling and vacillation, his unkept promises, frustrate his base even as they torment his adversaries.

Yet, the great biblical commentator Malbim notes (II Divrei Hayamim 9:8) that “the throne of Israel is G-d’s throne, and Israel’s king is the king ascribed to G-d.” PM Netanyahu may not officially be a “king of Israel,” song notwithstanding, although he has served more years as leader than most kings of ancient Israel and Judea served. But, as we know, people who are anti-America hate the United States regardless of who its leader is, and people who despise a particular leader do not usually then loathe the entire country. That sort of perverse ignominy is reserved for Israel.

We should not accept it and we should no longer be fooled by it. The dichotomy between anti-Israel and anti-Jewish is false. It is false in the media, on the campuses, and in the capitals of the world. If any other country in the world were as relentlessly criticized as was Israel, we would rightly assume that the critic has animus towards that country and its people. Those who claim to love Jews but hate Israel should prove it. My bet is that they cannot. And we who love Israel and Jews should give thanks both for the challenges and privileges of our generation, which – for all the current unpleasantness and the media loudmouths – previous generations would have loved to have.

Count us among the grateful – and those who stand with pride for the gifts with which we have been blessed as well as the opportunities to confound our enemies and bring redemption closer. And always remember that just because people criticize Israel does not mean that they are not anti-Semites.

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