The antisemitism unleashed after October 7 can be linked to previous eruptions against Jews and Jewish communities throughout the world, but today, Israel is the main target. Zionism, the liberation movement of the Jewish people, was the aspiration of Theodor Herzl after he experienced the Dreyfus Affair as a journalist. He envisioned a Jewish State in Palestine as a haven from antisemitism and homelessness but ironically, the Jews, who were previously disdained for being rootless are now decried for their homeland.
Instead of sympathy for the victims of October 7, the barbarism provoked more anti-Jewish hatred. Such delusional bigotry fuelled riots and tore France apart during the Dreyfus affair at the turn of the 20th Century, threatening the very foundations of the Republic. The struggle between French Catholicism and secularism inflamed the antisemitism endemic within the French Church and Army, and energised Jew-hating newspaper editors such as Edouard Drumont. Society projected its own fears on Dreyfus and the Jews, drawing on a deep seam of traditional prejudice.
Despite spurious evidence in a ‘secret dossier,’ Dreyfus was convicted of high treason, cashiered in a humiliating public ceremony, and paraded through Paris while huge crowds jeered, ‘Death to Judas, Death to the Jew.’ Exiled for life to the notorious French penal colony of Devil’s Island, he would have died ignominiously if not for Major Georges Picquart, the newly appointed head of Military Intelligence. Crucial support also came from the French senator, Auguste Scheurer-Kestner and activist intellectuals such as Emile Zola.
Picquart discovered the real spy was Ferdinand Walsin-Esterhazy, a disgruntled French officer and gambler, but his fearless whistleblowing led to his own dismissal, a precarious deployment in Tunisia, and a year in prison.
Eventually, Esterhazy was court-martialed. His acquittal prompted Zola to publish ‘J’Accuse…!’ an open letter blasting the French army. Their ‘monstrous’ deceptions and forgeries had suppressed Dreyfus’ innocence and protected Esterhazy in a miscarriage of justice that disgraced France and stoked virulent, divisive antisemitism. Zola was tried for libel amid antisemitic riots throughout France, and a second trial that re-convicted Dreyfus of treason was followed by more riots.
Today, Israel is confronting a twin-headed enemy in the alliance of radical Islamism and the far-Left. The former is animated by anti-Jewish texts in scriptures, the impact of Soviet antisemitism, and Palestinian fascism, promoted by Hitler’s collaborator, Amin al-Husseini, Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. The Woke far-Left, shadowed by naïve followers, is bent on undermining Israel as an individualistic, capitalist nation-state, protected by a patriotic citizen army.
Like Dreyfus, Israel is on trial by media, institutions and society, but the jury is worldwide, passing shameful judgment in a conflict between democratic Israel, and Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis and other paramilitary surrogates of global terror master, Iran.
Western countries and the UN blame Israel for escalating a regional war by remotely detonating Hezbollah’s communication devices and assassinating their leader, Hassan Nasrallah. However, the blame rests with Iran and its proxy Hezbollah for relentless rocket and drone attacks since October 8, forcing the evacuation of more than 60,000 residents of northern Israel.
With blatant moral inversion, many leftist media networks, the United Nations, International Court of Justice, International Criminal Court and global NGOs endorse the malicious deceptions of Hamas, a jihadi, listed terrorist organisation akin to ISIS and al Qaeda. The UN and ICC accuse Israel of genocide, despite Israel’s phone and leaflet alerts to minimize civilian deaths, yet fail to censure Hamas for leveraging civilians as human shields and ‘necessary sacrifices’ in their strategy to manipulate public opinion.
The UN and ICC also ignore Hamas’ flouting of the Geneva Conventions that prohibit hostage-taking.
Another international body, UN Women, disgracefully kept silent for nearly two months about the hideous sexual atrocities of October 7.
Like Dreyfus, Israel was considered guilty from the start. Before Israeli forces entered Gaza to dismantle Hamas, well-organised rallies led by radical Islamists and far-Left activists were storming international capitals, essentially erasing or justifying October 7 savageries and romanticising terrorism. Jewish institutions, businesses and students became targets, recalling Drumont’s propaganda that fuelled Jew-hatred.
International mainstream media has ignored truth and fact for stories that sanitise Hamas, while Israel is demonised and delegitimised through deceit, omissions, hypocrisy and double standards. The BBC is particularly culpable, with more than 1,500 violations of its own editorial guidelines.
Instead of demanding Hamas surrender and return hostages to stop the war in Gaza, Israel is falsely accused of prolonging the conflict, as well as impeding humanitarian aid, despite Hamas warehouses packed with stolen supplies for future sale in Gaza.
Media networks continued to parrot the Orwellian Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry which claimed statistically implausible civilian casualty figures by inflating the number of dead, ignoring differentiation between civilians and combatants, and counting fallen teenage fighters as children.
Repeated false accusations of genocide and ethnic cleansing are touted by local Arab journalists, who are collaborators, if not operatives, of terrorist militias. When Al-Jazeera’s Ismail Al-Ghoul was killed in an Israeli airstrike, coverage omitted that he was a member of Hamas who reportedly took part in the October 7 massacre.
While the media is obsessed with defaming Israel, they are derelict in disregarding the famine, rape and ethnic cleansing in Sudan, jihadist violence against Christians in Africa, and persecution of Muslim Rohingya and Uighurs.
Israel is defending the West and regional Middle East nations against Iran’s proxy militias that cause havoc in the region and worldwide. Yemen’s Houthis threaten global shipping, and from its headquarters in Lebanon, Hezbollah has seeded worldwide outposts for terrorism, recruitment, drug trafficking and money laundering.
Committed to appeasement, the US and Europe effectively reward the Islamic Republic’s proxy terrorism, blinding the Western public to Iran’s genocidal hatred of Israel and apocalyptic, imperialist Shiite revolution.
Like Dreyfus earlier, Israel requires the mobilisation of writers, politicians, and institutions with moral courage to denounce the appalling miscarriage of truth and justice, and condemn the malign falsehoods that vilify Israel, proliferate antisemitism and divide society.
Israel is on the frontline of a civilisational battle for the West, threatened by ambitions of the far-Left and radical Islamists, seeking to destroy American power and cripple a West weakened by Woke ideology.