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Amid mounting global criticisms and denunciations of its conduct during its 18-month blitz on the Gaza Strip, which has so far killed more than 55,000 people and injured over 100,000, Israeli leaders have chosen to brush aside any censure by playing the antisemitism card and accusing critics of “blood libel.”

This response has picked up pace in recent months, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his extremist coalition partners have hurled insults at some of their closest allies, such as French President Emanuel Macron, for simply calling out the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza. Zionists have lambasted Macron and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer for suggesting that their countries may be closer than ever to recognizing a Palestinian state at a UN conference next week.

Both have been strong supporters of Israel after Oct. 7. Still, once they began to hint that war crimes may have been committed in Gaza, the Zionist propaganda machine started stalking them. Many other leaders, celebrities and organizations have been labeled as antisemitic because they dared to point out the obvious: Israel has committed a long list of war crimes in Gaza, most of which are well documented.

Israel is the only country in the world that has this false image of itself: a nation that can do no wrong simply because Jews suffered an unspeakable calamity at the hands of Europeans many decades ago. Its claim that Israel represents the entire world’s Jewry is also contestable. But the most outrageous assertion is that criticism of Zionism, a political ideology that is more than a century old, is a form of antisemitism.

The most outrageous assertion is that criticism of Zionism, a political ideology, is a form of antisemitism

Osama Al-Sharif

Israel has used the antisemitism card for decades. But the war on Gaza has forced its leaders to flash that card left, right and center in an absurd manner. It has by now worn out the card itself and emptied it of any substantial meaning. One such example is that of famous British TV presenter Piers Morgan, whose weekly program has millions of followers on social media. Morgan has been a strong backer of Israel’s war on Gaza and a major critic of anyone who has criticized its actions since the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks. He even peddled some of Israel’s false claims about the atrocities Hamas allegedly committed on that ominous day.

But in recent weeks, Morgan has had a change of heart, accusing Israel of deliberately targeting women and children in Gaza while resorting to the collective punishment of Palestinians in both the enclave and the West Bank. Subsequently, Morgan has been demonized for grilling Israeli officials about Gaza and asking the right questions. Ardent Zionists now accuse him of “blood libel.”

Accusing Israel of killing children or carrying out a genocide is enough to earn the accuser the label of being an antisemite. In fact, in his speech at the UN’s General Assembly last year, Netanyahu denounced the entire UN, describing it as a “swamp of antisemitic bile.” His envoy to that body had famously and arrogantly shredded the UN Charter before members just a few months previously.

There are two key points to remember here. One, criticizing Israel is not a sin, a taboo or a moral lapse. The second thing is that antisemitism is a serious charge, but it is not something Israel can use freely, as a blank check to break the law of free will.

Israel’s sense of impunity, buffered by its increasing arrogance and sense of entitlement, would not have reached this degree of depravity if it were not for the blind political backing and subservience of most US politicians. In addition to Israel, only American politicians and administrations have dared use the slander of antisemitism. The Trump administration has gone as far as sanctioning four sitting judges at the International Criminal Court for their role in supporting the issuance of an arrest warrant for Netanyahu and a past decision to open a case into alleged war crimes by US troops in Afghanistan.

The White House has defined any pro-Palestine activism at US universities as antisemitism and has taken measures to deport students accused of expressing anti-Israel and pro-Palestine views. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has issued a directive to check the backgrounds of student visa applicants to find any criticism of Israel.

Antisemitism must be neutralized as a card that Israel can throw around whenever its actions breach international law

Osama Al-Sharif

Such short-sighted — not to mention illegal under the US Constitution — policies do Jews around the world no service, as they conflate any criticism of Israel or Zionism with hatred of Jews. This is simply absurd. The irony is that even progressive Jews, including Holocaust survivors, who denounce Zionism and condemn Israeli crimes have been labeled as antisemitic.

In recent months, former Israeli premiers and army generals have come out to accuse their government of committing war crimes in Gaza. This is further proof that extremist Israeli leaders and pro-Israel US politicians have weaponized the antisemitism card and, by doing so, they have denigrated the memory of those Jews who perished in Europe simply because of their religion.

Zionism as a nationalistic political ideology must be delinked from the Jewish religion — an idea that is not preposterous, since many followers of various Jewish sects have already made that distinction. And as the bedrock ideology of the state of Israel, it is subject to international laws and conventions just like any other.

In 1975, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution determining that Zionism was a form of racism. It was revoked in 1991. Antisemitism must be neutralized as a card that Israel can throw around whenever its actions breach international law. Zionist Israel cannot use the blood of Jews who died because of their religion to justify the mass murder of others.

Since the start of the Gaza war, antisemitic acts have spiked in the West. But one must first separate hatred of Jews based on their religion from the perfectly “kosher” criticism of Israeli state crimes. Such crimes must not be blamed on the followers of the Jewish faith. One must dare ask about the direct correlation between the rise in antisemitic crimes and the Gaza genocide. It is Israeli arrogance and bigotry that have become a liability for international Jewry.

The fact is that Israel and its allied groups have widely adopted accusations of antisemitism to suppress those advocating for Palestinian rights and to shield Israeli policies from scrutiny. Critics argue this blurs the line between hatred of Jews and criticism of Israel’s government and its actions in the Occupied Territories.

The final irony, which is missed by many, is that the Palestinians, one of the ancient Semitic peoples of the region, are now being killed and starved to death in the name of the Jews. At the same time, their supporters are targeted and labeled as antisemitic.

• Osama Al-Sharif is a journalist and political commentator based in Amman. X: @plato010