20 Questions for an Antisemitism Crusader

My thoughts on the appalling deference shown to acclaimed historians who are concerned about a surge in antisemitism

Photo by Simone Secci on Unsplash

On May 6, one of Britain’s very rare truth-telling journalists, Jonathan Cook, published an article, Acclaimed public figures keep shilling for Israel’s genocide, in which he called for the “outing” of “moral ghouls like Simon Schama and Simon Sebag Montefiore [who] are still being given a platform to smear as 'antisemites' opponents of genocide”.

In an appearance on Sky News, “acclaimed” historian and author, Simon Sebag Montefiore expressed his concern that Jews will be blamed for Israel’s current blockade of food, water, fuel and medical supplies into Gaza, and that the end of the 80-year taboo on antisemitism has allowed pro-Palestinian protestors to exploit medieval tropes of antisemitism. Simon Shuma, another “acclaimed” historian gave a lecture in March on the “toxic” spread of antisemitism among the West’s younger generation. Both men are British Jews.

As Cook writes:

The positions adopted by Montefiore, Jacobson* and Schuma on “antisemitism” are not politically or ethically neutral – nor is their preferential platforming by the establishment media. They are there to throw sand in our eyes, to suggest that the rightful anger evoked by the mass slaughter and starvation of children in Gaza by an apartheid, self-declared “Jewish” supremacist state is rooted not, as it is, in basic decency and humanism but by some perverse impulse towards antisemitism. That is pure genocide apologism on the part of these “acclaimed” public intellectuals.

(*“Acclaimed” writer Howard Jacobsen published in October 2024 an article in The Guardian with the title “Tales of infanticide have stoked hatred of Jews for centuries. They echo still today.”)

The really sad thing about those who are the first and loudest to cry “antisemitism” is that they do not see how transparently thin their pathetic sob stories of eternal victimhood are wearing, and how utterly tired of it so many people are becoming! And what gets me more than absurd accusations of antisemitism is whenever one of these “acclaimed” mavens appears in the media, no one ever challenges them or asks a single, hard question. But then, I guess, since Israel can get away with a live-streamed genocide, its faithful apologists and rationalizers are owed equal deference.

If I had the chance, here’s a list of 20 questions that I couldn’t wait to ask. Note that my questions are addressed not to “Jews” which would be an inaccurate generalization, but rather to “Jews like you”, by whom I mean those Jews who take it upon themselves to speak for everyone but only represent a Zionist elite.

1. Exactly what is there to love and admire about a Jewish ethnosupremacist, apartheid state that has been purposefully and disproportionately targeting and slaughtering children and women in Gaza since October 7, 2023 to the point where they make up nearly 70% of an underestimated 61,700¹ fatalities?

2. Precisely what is there to love and admire about Jewish Israelis who have been treating the indigenous Palestinian population like human animals and subhumans for as long as Israel has existed, and who have been driving them from their homes with no right of return and stealing their land?

3. What is there to praise and revere about an Israeli leadership whose single-minded goal is to exterminate or permanently expel the Palestinians from Gaza and the occupied West Bank, and to establish Greater Israel at the risk of unleashing a broader regional conflict?

4. What is there to like about those Jewish people who consider themselves chosen by God, beholden only to God’s laws, and therefore superior to all other people?

5. Apropos God’s laws, which of the Ten Commandments authorizes mass murder, mass starvation, torture, rape, ethnic cleansing, and the collective punishment of unarmed civilians?

6. Exactly what sets Zionism apart from Nazism, and how is Netanyahu more heroic than Hitler?

7. For every Palestinian child that Israel has killed, disabled for life, starved, orphaned, traumatised, denied an education and medical treatment, how many Israeli children has Hamas killed, disabled for life, starved, orphaned, traumatised, denied an education and medical treatment?

8. For every Palestinian woman or man that Israel has widowed or made childless, how many Israeli women and men has Hamas widowed and made childless?

9. For every Palestinian doctor, nurse, medic, emergency and humanitarian aid worker, journalist, academic, poet and artist that Israel has killed, how many Israeli doctors, nurses, medics, emergency and humanitarian aid workers, journalists, academics, poets and artists has Hamas killed?

10. How many hospitals has Hamas destroyed in Israel? How many Israeli schools, universities, synagogues, bakeries, businesses, markets, roads, sewage treatment, electrical and desalination plants, olive groves, agricultural lands?

11. How many Israeli homes has Hamas bombed or bulldozed?

12. How many Israeli families has Hamas wiped from the registry?

13. When are Jews like you finally going to start living in the present, and stop dragging around your past trauma and incomparable historical suffering wherever you go like a rotting, reeking corpse?

14. When are Jews like you going to stop using the Holocaust to guilt-trip the whole world and to entitle Israel to commit a live-steamed genocide with impunity?

15. Why does surviving trauma and suffering entitle Jews like you to perpetuate trauma and suffering on other people?

16. When are Jews like you finally going to learn to face criticism of Israel like mature adults without needing to slander, smear, slur, defame, vilify, and shut down your critics as antisemites, and destroy their careers and reputations?

17. How come no one has ever put forward a valid, rational counter argument to any criticism of Israel, or is that because there are no valid, rational counter arguments?

18. When are Jews like you going to learn to forgive, and to forsake blind vengeance and vicious retribution for mercy and compassion?

19. Are Jews like you seriously worried about a surge in antisemitism or are you more afraid of losing your power if antisemitism did not exist?

20. When are Jews like you going to realize that in order to enjoy safety and security, you must first make peace with your neighbours, and recognize that everyone else is entitled to exactly the same rights that you are?

In her book, The Choice: Embracing the Possible, psychologist Dr. Edith Egers, herself a survivor of Auschwitz, writes that past experiences ask of survivors to help themselves and others “to endure the hardest parts of life and to experience more passion and joy”. In the last chapter, Healing, she goes on to state:

Our painful experiences aren’t a liability—they’re a gift. They give us perspective and meaning, an opportunity to find our unique purpose and our strength.

There is no one-size-fits-all template for healing, but there are steps that can be learned and practiced, steps that each individual can weave together in his or her own ways, steps in the dance of freedom.

One last question would be: When are YOU going to take those first steps?

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1. From an Al Jazeera article: “Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 53,010 Palestinians and wounded 119,919, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health. The Strip’s Government Media Office has updated its death toll to more than 61,700, saying thousands of others missing under the rubble are presumed dead.”