THE FOUR TESTS
Critique or Antisemitism?
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Had actually planned to post something funny and sweet this morning. But the clown show apparently continues unabated everywhere - so you get this one instead.
Written for anyone who wants to get better at distinguishing between critique of system and policy - and hatred of human beings.
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In recent years at universities in London, Paris, New York and Copenhagen, students have marched with signs. They sing songs about liberation. They occupy lecture halls and demand their teachers condemn Israel. They paint slogans on walls. They give speeches about injustice. And they use formulations like "From the river to the sea" and "Globalize the intifada" without anyone really asking what they mean.
That's what makes the conversation about Israel and antisemitism so difficult to conduct. Because some of those signs say something that IS political critique of a state's actions. And some of those signs say something entirely different. And it has become politically expensive, in some circles nearly impossible, to name the difference.
But the difference exists. And if you cannot describe it, two things happen simultaneously. One is that legitimate critique of the state of Israel gets shot down as antisemitism, which protects bad policy. The other is that antisemitism gets treated as legitimate political critique, which protects one of the world's oldest hatreds. Both are harmful. And both are the consequence of a completely fundamental distinction no longer being kept clear.
Let me first describe what legitimate critique of Israel looks like. This is perhaps the most important part of this text, because if you cannot describe it, the rest is meaningless.
You can criticise Israel's government. You can criticise Prime Minister Netanyahu. You can criticise the coalition partners, particularly the extreme parties in the current government. You can criticise settlement policy on the West Bank. You can criticise specific military operations. You can criticise the treatment of Palestinians in the occupied territories. You can discuss proportionality in a given response to a given attack. You can question ethical choices in warfare. You can be critical of the growing influence of the religious right. You can be against the entire settlement project as political strategy. You can criticise the lack of progress on a two-state solution. You can be against the government's dealings with the supreme court, with the media, with the opposition.
All of this is legitimate critique. It is critique that is formulated every single day, also by Jews, also by Israelis themselves, also by people who love the country and fear its direction. That kind of critique is not antisemitism. It is political disagreement about a state's actions, and it has exactly the same legitimacy as critique of any other state's actions.
But there also exists another type of speech about Israel that is not critique of the state. It is an attack on the state's right to exist, on the Jewish people's right to self-determination, and ultimately on the Jewish people's right to be. It is the old hatred that has reinvented its language, and that is what this text is about.
How do you know the difference. There are four tests. They are simple, they are clear, and they are difficult to circumvent. Each one of them can stand alone, but together they leave no doubt.
The first test is the existence-right test.
Does the critic acknowledge Israel's right to exist as a Jewish self-governing state. That is the fundamental question. If the answer is yes, then the critic is a political critic, no matter how sharp the critique is. He may wish for an entirely different political system in Israel, an entirely different government, an entirely different border arrangement, an entirely different approach to the West Bank. It is still critique of a state one acknowledges. If the answer is no, then you are in an entirely different place. Then the demand is not that Israel should act differently, but that Israel should disappear. And that demand, that a Jewish state should not exist, is not new. It is the demand antisemitism has always had. The only difference is that it is now said in a language that sounds progressive.
"From the river to the sea" is the test in its purest form. It is a geographical claim. From the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. That is all of Israel's territory, plus the West Bank, plus Gaza. The sentence says this entire area should be "free", and free in this context means free of Jewish self-determination. It is not a critique of a policy. It is erasure in geographical form.
The second test is the selectivity test.
Does the critic apply the same standards to other states. It is a simple test, and it is merciless. China today treats at least one million Uyghurs in concentration camps, conducts forced sterilisation, systematically oppresses Tibetans. Iran executes homosexuals, stones women, imprisons regime critics by the hundreds. Saudi Arabia has since 2015 waged a war in Yemen that has killed hundreds of thousands of civilians. Turkey has since 1974 occupied Northern Cyprus and displaced hundreds of thousands. Russia has annexed Crimea and wages war of invasion in Ukraine.
Where are the university occupations against these states. Where are the boycott movements. Where are the hundreds of UN resolutions. Where are the artists' and academics' demands for exclusion. They do not exist in any comparable order of magnitude. It is exclusively one state, Israel, that is met with this intensity of international protest, artistic and academic exclusion, and demands for cultural quarantine. These are not principles. This is selection. And the selection of precisely this one state, among all the world's states, has a long and documented history that has nothing to do with the specific policy being conducted right now.
The third test is the language test.
What is the core of what is being said and shouted and written. Political critique uses political language. It speaks about borders, about laws, about proportionality, about international conventions, about diplomatic solutions. Antisemitism uses an entirely different language. It speaks about elimination. It speaks about violence against Jews as a people, not about violence against a government. It recycles classical antisemitic tropes, often without the user even knowing it. Dual loyalty, that Jews cannot be loyal citizens in their countries because they are "really" loyal to Israel. Media control, that Jews control the flow of information. Money power, that Jews control capital. Blood libel, that Jews sacrifice children, now in the form of claims that Israeli soldiers systematically murder Palestinian children for sport. It is the old vocabulary, and it returns with a regularity that cannot be denied.
"Globalize the intifada" is the test. It is a cry that is not about Israel. It is about Jews throughout the world. Intifada means violent uprising. To "globalize" it means to carry it to London, to Paris, to New York, to Copenhagen. Against whom. Against Jews. It is not political critique. It is a call for violence against a specific people throughout the West, and that is what it is.
The fourth test is the collective-responsibility test.
Are Jews with no connection to Israel's government held responsible for what Israel's government does. Are synagogues attacked throughout the West as "protest" against military operations in Gaza. Are Jewish students met with threats on campus in Paris, New York, London, Copenhagen, because a government they never voted for has made decisions they were never part of. Are Jewish restaurants burned down. Are Jewish gravesites desecrated. Are children of Jewish parents asked to hide their Stars of David on the way to school.
If the answer is yes, and the answer is yes, it is documented daily in police reports from capital to capital, then it is no longer political critique of a state. It is traditional antisemitism that has found a contemporary excuse. Political critique keeps the critique within the political sphere. It is directed at governments, at politicians, at decisions, at institutions. It is not directed at ordinary people of the same ethnic or religious origin, who have not made the decisions being critiqued. When you cross that boundary, you cross from system to Human. And we have a name for that crossing. It is hatred of a people.
When these four tests are activated simultaneously, and they are again and again in the movements, demonstrations and comment threads that now fill Western capitals, then it is not critique of Israel. It is the old hatred that has reinvented its language.
The distinction must be held. He who cannot acknowledge Israel's right to exist cannot simultaneously call himself a principled critic of the state. He who sees only one state among the world's states as the target for artistic and academic exclusion cannot simultaneously call himself a principled opponent of oppression. He who shouts elimination language cannot simultaneously call himself a humanist. He who lets Jews throughout the world bear the blame for a particular government's decisions cannot simultaneously call himself free of antisemitism.
It is not complicated.
It is actually very simple, once you have seen it.
It has just become politically expensive to say.
And that is why it must be said.
❤️🔥🪽
