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A Wave of Hatred

The unjustifiable boycott of Jewish artists who stand in solidarity with Israel without necessarily supporting its government is a phenomenon all too common. Jewish or Israeli people who are not public figures are not immune to a new kind of boycott, one that targets their very identity.

There have been too many incidents to list them all : a Burger King in Pennsylvania, a zoo in Thailand, a fight at an airport in the Philippines after an Israeli was called a “baby killer,” demonstrations in Greece, an attack on Jewish teenagers in Montenegro, the attack on two Israeli women in Thailand, Jews targeted in Barcelona, at a refreshment stand in Isère in France, or in a supermarket in Avignon…

The scale of this phenomenon, which raises fundamental questions about the condition of Jews and Israelis around the world, cannot escape anyone’s notice. Not a single day seems to pass without a new incident being reported. It is also possible that the media coverage—desirable though it is—may produce a copycat or contagion effect, the kind of “copycat” phenomenon observed in connection with jihadist attacks or school shootings in the United States, potentially contributing as much to the spread as to the normalization of this antisemitism.

A Permanent Ordeal

For many Israeli families vacationing abroad, the question of whether to speak Hebrew or say where they come from has already become an issue, regardless of the political opinions of those involved, which should in any event play no role whatsoever.

When presenting an Israeli passport while checking into a hotel becomes an ordeal during which one holds one’s breath, this has nothing to do with reasoned and reasonable criticism of a policy. It has everything to do with a genuine process of intimidation and social exclusion. When a massage is refused to a customer because she is Israeli because the masseuse says she is “Free Palestine,” this is discrimination in its purest form, a prelude to exclusion from our shared humanity. When the author’s own daughter hesitates to say, in New York in 2026, that her mother is Israeli, it is an insidious, low‐​level form of Crypto-Judaism gradually emerging.

Since the Second Intifada, we have seen in France the wearing of baseball caps become widespread around synagogues, while mezuzot were removed. Since October 7, 2023, in addition to these same phenomena, apps such as Uber have become the setting for the great camouflage of “marked” Jewish surnames in France and elsewhere. Yesterday, one had to keep a low profile in order to integrate and become fully French or British. Today, the same injunction to discretion has become a matter of physical personal safety, rather than merely one of social and political integration.

This insecurity has always accompanied Jews throughout their history. It is returning with force in the current context of radical criticism of Israel, which increasingly tends toward the demonization of the country and has little left in common with questions or criticism—even harsh criticism—of the Jewish state.

A “Righteous” Demonization, in the Name of Good

The violence we are witnessing is sometimes physical, but it is also sometimes symbolic and more insidious : when a landlord asks Jewish prospective tenants about their political views before renting them a house, or when the same misfortune befalls a French rabbinical student—and Tenoua author—who wanted to go boating in Greece, we are dealing with a unique case of presumed guilt and a new form of well‐​intentioned McCarthyism, one that has never been applied to other conflicts.

The demonization of Israel makes it possible to exclude Israelis first, and Jews afterward, in good conscience, as happened in Isere, openly and even unapologetically. The absence of any sense of embarrassment—and even a desire to embrace this unrestrained antisemitism in the name of good—is indeed the great novelty of the summer of 2026. Some, such as the landlord, even claim to regret it but say they have no choice but to do it.

As unacceptable images of violence by extremist settlers in the West Bank collide with images of everyday hatred against Jews and Israelis, some take advantage of the situation to justify one through the other. Antisemitic acts in Europe are often met with the question, “What about Gaza?” The trap thus closes around Jews—all Jews—who are called upon to condemn violence or acts for which they bear no responsibility whatsoever and which, in any event, make their own suffering seem relative, or even indecent, in certain circles…

For the Iranian regime, Israel is the “Little Satan” and the United States the “Great Satan.” For “progressive” anti‐​Zionists on the left and “nationalists” on the right, Jews are little devils and Israelis great devils, accomplices in one case and perpetrators in the other, of a “genocide.”

This demonization in the name of good is not simply a harsh, exaggerated, or even unjust criticism of Israeli policy. Rather, it inadvertently serves as an instrument for perpetuating that policy, by making criticism of it—although entirely legitimate and justified given the policies pursued by the current Israeli government—difficult, if not impossible, in the present context.

The Trap of the Sacred Union and Political‐​Identity Assignment

Criticism of a government’s policies has nothing to do with demonizing an entire country. The former is legitimate and makes dialogue possible ; the latter isolates, confines, and radicalizes. This demonization therefore risks reinforcing among Jews and Israelis around the world a sense of isolation and of a fortress under siege.

No one should be required to denounce the policies of the Israeli government in order to be accepted into society and live there peacefully. But for those who wish to affirm their Israeli identity or their Jewish identity in solidarity with Israel while criticizing its government’s policies, the current situation is extremely complicated.

These incessant attacks on Israel’s very existence, and the criminalization of the country, its citizens, or its supporters, are in fact an indirect gift to Netanyahu and his vision of Israel as a self-sufficient Sparta that could turn its back on the entire world. In this sense, the current situation once again illustrates the objective alliance between the Israeli far right, for whom any criticism of Israeli policy is antisemitism and therefore illegitimate, and radical anti‐​Zionists who regard the very existence of this country as illegitimate, such that no change in policy could save it. Ben Gvir provides them with the welcome face of a hateful Israel.

Netanyahu has given political legitimacy to Ben Gvir and the racist far right in a way none of his predecessors, including those on the right, ever did. He has no concern for Israel’s deteriorating image or for the incessant attacks on Jews and Israelis, and one might even think that he welcomes them. These attacks paradoxically “kosher” Israeli policy by neutralizing criticism and reinforcing the narrative of an “irreducible hatred of Jews,” which would make criticism of government policy absurd and instead require a sacred union behind the Israeli government. Yet this sacred union is a trap : it assigns Jews a political identity predetermined by their enemies and by an extremist and cynical Israeli government.

For Jews who stand in solidarity with Israel while criticizing its government, this amounts to a double punishment, a double Crypto‐​Judaism : hiding one’s identity from anti‐​Zionists while hiding one’s political opinions from one’s fellow Jews, lest one be branded a traitor or a useful idiot for anti‐​Zionists and antisemites.

Rabin used to say that one had to fight terrorism as if the peace process did not exist, and defend the peace process as if terrorism did not exist. After this summer, the watchword for avoiding the condition of the Crypto Jew could be, for those who occupy this political space, to assume responsibility for criticizing the Israeli government as if there were no anti‐​Zionist extremists, and to fight anti‐​Zionists as if the policies of the Israeli government were not condemnable.

Maintaining nuance amid such a deluge of hatred is a formidable challenge, but today it is the only path toward preserving a freedom and dignity that are being put to the test, in every corner of the planet, for Jews and Israelis.