The Dilemma of the West

What is to be done about Jew-hatred?

The aftermath of October 7 is a test for the West and for all open societies—societies that purport to tolerate and even embrace diversity of opinion, culture, and ideology. Such societies that nominally believe in freedom of speech and the press are now at a crossroads and must think about the direction they wish to head.

Reasonable people can disagree about who is responsible and in what amounts for the quality of civilian life in Gaza before October 7. Reasonable people can disagree about whether pressure should be put on Israel to temper its military response to the pogrom of October 7.

Debates over these questions happen here in Israel and they happen in other open societies around the world.

But what do you do about Jew-hatred? What do you do when anti-Zionism is not merely a disagreement with Israeli policy but comes in a flavor that is about Jews and not just Israelis?

An open society believes in freedom of assembly and freedom of speech. But how does an open society like Australia deal with a crowd of about a thousand people who chant not just “F**k the Jews” but “Gas the Jews” on the steps of the Sydney Opera House? The police discouraged Jews from coming to that rally. Is that the right response? Is there an alternative? [Author’s note: Since writing this article, I understand that the crowd did not chant “Gas the Jews” but maybe something like “Where’s the Jews?” They did chant “F*** the Jews” but the rally was not quite as ugly as was first reported…]

How does an open society like England’s deal with 100,000 people marching in the streets chanting “Free Palestine,” and “From the river to the sea” in the aftermath of the October 7th pogrom? Those two slogans are a demand for ethnic cleansing—an Israel without Jews. People at that rally waved flags of Jihad—religious war. They chanted “intifada,” a reference to when Palestinians regularly blew up buses and restaurants in Israel.

How do college campuses—where free speech is often suppressed if you are the flavor of the day—deal with student groups and rallies that support the destruction of the Jewish state or that celebrate savagery against civilians? How do college campuses deal with student groups that either explicitly endorse the rapes, beheadings, mutilations, burnings of Hamas on October 7 or implicitly endorse them by demanding a ceasefire without mentioning what happened on October 7 or the 200+ kidnapped Israelis sitting in Gaza?

At George Washington University, someone projected giant signs on the sides of buildings saying “Glory to Our Martyrs” and “From the river to the sea.” Should the celebration of Jews being murdered be protected speech in an open society?

There was a pro-Palestine rally and March in Brooklyn this past Saturday with the title “Flood Brooklyn for Palestine.” The Hamas pogrom on October 7 was called “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.” Probably not a coincidence.

“Honor the Martyrs of Palestine,” “Support Palestine Resistance” and “By any means necessary.” That sounds like supporting not just a ceasefire, but also the pogrom of October 7. Jews were told to avoid the area of the rally. Is this the right way for an open society to respond?

Political disagreement is at the heart of an open society. Celebrating the deaths of your political opponents or civilian deaths seems like something different. I don’t think an open society can survive if some of its members use violence or the threat of violence to silence their opponents.

How does an open society cope with the reality that some of its members do not believe in an open society?

I recently read Stefan Zweig’s memoir, The World of Yesterday. It’s a masterpiece describing Zweig’s intellectual and cultural world in Vienna and the rest of Europe before and after World War I. Zweig struggles to explain the rise of Hitler but ex post, he understands that part of Hitler’s success was due to how his supporters used violence and intimidation to silence Hitler’s opponents and to raise the cost of their meeting and gathering publicly.

We’re now getting a small taste of that kind of intimidation in America and elsewhere. Last week in Skokie Illinois there was a pro-Israel rally and some Jews gathered for an impromptu evening prayer service. Nearby, maybe 20 yards away, a crowd, held back by barriers, screamed “Allahu Akbar” at them. Police were there, too, restraining them. But what if Jew-haters begin to stand outside of synagogues with disruptive tactics and only the implicit threat of violence? Who will stop them? Will the Jews fight back or lower their profile as many Jewish institutions have done in recent years—not listing their address so only the insiders can find where they are?

There are lots of videos online of people gleefully pulling down or defacing the posters of kidnapped children and adults. Such actions are at least a tacit endorsement of child abduction. Is that free speech? Hate speech? Or a legitimate political protest? Sometimes people watching or filming the desecration of these posters plead for the desecrators not to do it. Sometimes they beg those tearing down the posters for an explanation. Almost no one steps in their way, though. I get it. We’re all afraid of people who seem willing to do violence to us. But how can an open society tolerate this?

Yesterday, someone did step in the way and it was filmed. The style and the R-rated language is part of the reason this video has gone viral with millions of views.

This is one way to respond in an open society—a grassroots response that also uses the threat of violence. Is that our only hope?

Tom Palmer of the Cato Institute once told me that there should be free speech for everyone except those who hold ideologies that do not believe in free speech. I disagreed vehemently. By definition, free speech requires tolerating speech you dislike and even despise. Free speech should have no exceptions based on political grounds, I argued. I’ve since changed my mind. Tom was right. Someone who hates Jews or any other group and supports their murder or abuse and who uses violence or the threat of violence to silence those who disagree, cannot be tolerated in an open society. But how to implement that intolerance of intolerance?

There is no easy answer to this question but surely some responses are inadequate. Telling Jews to stay away from rallies that support the killing of Jews is inadequate. When a rally at Emory University featured antisemitic slogans, the president decried those slogans in a powerfully worded letter. But it’s a scolding, nothing more. Nothing about the consequences of the hate or protecting the Jewish students at Emory.

We now have the unbearable audio of one of the murderers on October 7th calling his parents and proudly declaring that he killed 10 Jews. Not ten Israelis. Not ten Zionists. Not ten white colonialists. Not 10 settlers. Ten Jews. Here in Israel, we have no illusions about what we’re up against. We know there are people who not only want our land. They want to kill us along the way.

There’s a genuine debate here in Israel about whether a ground offensive in Gaza will be worth the lives of the soldiers and the Gazan civilians who will die. But no one is debating whether it’s a good idea to kidnap children or kill their parents in front of them before abducting them. We know what we’re up against. Old-fashioned Jew-hatred. And we’re not going to hope it goes away or issue stern condemnations. We’re going to fight.

And to make it clear, we’re not interested in going to war with Gaza. We’re going to war with Hamas. But Israel faces the same dilemma described above. We don’t want to kill Gazans who want a normal life and a better world for their children. But we don’t know who they are. They can’t speak up against Hamas because they will be killed. So now what? Israel has decided to encourage Gazans to leave the northern part of Gaza City. We’re presuming, I assume, that those who are left are Hamas. But that’s probably not true. We know Hamas has tried to prevent civilians from heading south. They want Israel to face the dilemma of an open humane society. How do you respond to the intolerant when you believe tolerance is a virtue?

Open societies are going to have to come to terms with the reality that some of its citizens want to live in a very different kind of society and are willing to use violence and the threat of violence to intimidate and harm people they disagree with. There is no simple answer to coping with this reality. Talk is cheap. It’s easy to say that you’re against antisemitism—most of the right people have said all the right things. But soon the West and the open societies may have to do more than talk. They will have to act. Deciding what those actions should be is the terrible dilemma facing the West right now.