Information and Misinformation: Israel, Antisemitism, and the Jewish People

Suggesting Jews are secretly in control of massive amounts of power is a deeply antisemitic trope rooted in conspiracy theories that have been used to justify discrimination and violence against Jewish people for centuries. This notion perpetuates harmful stereotypes that depict Jews as manipulative, greedy, and seeking to dominate society from behind the scenes.

The area that is now the State of Israel, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and the Kingdom of Jordan has been inhabited for thousands of years by a variety of populations, including Jews, Arabs, Christians, and others. Jews have lived in the land now known as Israel for over 3,000 years, with a continuous presence dating back to ancient times.

Opposing Israeli government policies does not automatically make someone anti-Zionist or antisemitic. Like any country, Israel’s government can be subject to criticism, and individuals can disagree with its policies for a variety of reasons—without attacking the legitimacy of the state or the Jewish people (which does veer into anti-Zionism and antisemitism).

Some critics of Israel have accused the Israeli government of committing genocide of Palestinians. But genocide is a legal term, and Israeli policies and actions in its war against Hamas do not meet the definition of intentionally exterminating the Palestinian people, according to international law. This claim is inaccurate and misleading.

The false claim that the Holocaust was exaggerated or did not happen is rooted in Holocaust denial, a form of historical inaccuracy and revisionism that seeks to distort the facts of the Holocaust, minimize its severity, or deny its occurrence altogether. Holocaust denial is widely regarded as a form of antisemitism because it seeks to undermine the truth of Jewish suffering, deny the reality of Nazi crimes, and erase the memory of the six million Jews murdered during World War II. Holocaust denial has been universally condemned by historians, scholars, and governments alike.

No comparison can be made between the complex Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the atrocities committed by the Nazis against six million Jews and millions of others.

Judaism is a religion, and it is also a people, a culture, and a shared history. While religious practice is central for many Jews, Jewish identity is not solely defined by belief. Jews share a common ancestry, cultural traditions, and languages such as Hebrew, Ladino, and Yiddish that have existed for generations.

Founded in 1987 as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, a Sunni Islamist group, Hamas is a political and militant group that came to power by winning Gaza’s 2006 elections, and then seizing complete control of the enclave after a violent conflict with the Palestinian Authority’s Fatah faction the following year. Hamas has both a political wing and a military wing, and its military branch, the al-Qassam Brigades, has carried out bombings, rocket attacks, and kidnappings that targeted Israeli civilians — most notably during the Second Intifada and the October 7, 2023 attacks in which more than 1,200 people were killed, and 250 taken hostage.

While the swastika symbol has ancient roots in various cultures as a symbol of good fortune, including in Hindu and Buddhist communities, its meaning was fundamentally transformed when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party adopted it in the 1920s as a representation of their violent ideology. As a result, the swastika is almost universally considered to be an antisemitic and racist symbol because of its direct association with Nazi Germany and the Holocaust.

Zionism is the Jewish people’s desire for self determination in their ancestral homeland, the Land of Israel — the word “Zion” refers to one of two hills where King David established the ancient city of Jerusalem. After the founding of the modern state of Israel in 1948, Zionism became the national movement of the Israeli people, and a movement to support Israel. Zionism is a core component of Jewish identity for the majority of Jews around the world.

Nearly all major research studies, including the Pew Research Center’s most recent survey of Jewish Americans, indicate that a significant majority of Jews around the world – but not all — identify as having a personal connection with Israel, including to the nation of Israel, the people of Israel, and Israel as the historic and current center of Jewish religious life.

While Jews form the majority of the population of Israel, the country is home to a significant Arab population (20% of citizens), primarily Muslims and Christians

In medieval Europe, Jews were often barred from owning land and joining trade guilds, limiting their occupational choices. At the same time, Christian doctrines prohibited many Christians from charging interest on loans (“usury”) — but those restrictions were not applied to Jews. As a result, many Jews were involved with moneylending, one of the few professions available to them at the time. This economic necessity, born out of exclusion, laid the groundwork for harmful stereotypes associating Jews with greed and financial manipulation that continue to this day.

Anti-Israel activists sometimes accuse Israel of “pinkwashing,” which alleges that Israel highlights its progressive stance on LGBTQ+ rights in order to distract from its treatment of Palestinians. Critics argue — without evidence — that Israel uses its strong LGBTQ+ rights record as a way to improve its image internationally and deflect criticism of its policies toward Palestinians.

The term “white supremacy” has often been used to target Jews and Zionists. It portrays them as alt-right radicals with similar views to neo-Nazis — aiming to stigmatize and isolate them.

The West Bank is a territory located on the Western side of the Jordan River that borders Israel to the West, Jordan to the East, and the Dead Sea to the South. Home to nearly 3 million Palestinians and more than 500,000 Israelis, the West Bank has been one of the epicenters of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for decades, and remains an extremely contentious issue today.

Some critics of Israel accuse it of being an ethnostate — which means a country or nation that limits citizenship or political participation to only one ethnic group, often by law. However unlike most modern ethnostates, Israel grants full legal rights to all of its citizens, regardless of their ethnicity or religion.

Like every country, Israel faces societal challenges — including issues such as bias, discrimination, inequity, and racism. But the “apartheid” label doesn’t hold up.

Many anti-Israel activists use the term “settler colonialism” to refer to the changes in the state of Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip over the past 150 years.