Blame Netanyahu for Gaza, not ‘the Jews’

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu, is just a run-of-the-mill immoral, self-serving, law-evading, constitution-altering, neopopulist politician. Bibi is no different from Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, Jair Bolsonaro, or Victor Orbán. All have engaged in personal corruption, all have tried to violate or change their countries’ constitutions, and all have heaped inhumane treatment on their opponents. There is nothing remarkable about Bibi’s evil and nothing at all Jewish, Zionist, or Settler Colonial about it.

Yet ignoring this, many are blaming “the Jews” or “Zionism” for Bibi’s actions in Gaza. On October 7, Jewish civilians were massacred by Hamas. Since then, “the Jews” have been let down by their leadership both in Israel and in the Diaspora. Israel missed an opportunity to protect Jews on October 7 militarily, then harmed Jews’ safety globally by overreacting in Gaza, and then did so again by missing a giant PR opportunity to conduct a sophisticated media campaign to defuse the worst outbreak of antisemitism since the second world war. Rather than being conspiratorial, world-beating, media-manipulating geniuses, the Israeli leadership have just been ordinary schlemiels – utterly failing militarily, strategically and in the court of public opinion.