Amid the outrage over Hasan Piker’s remarks, a Jewish professor of Israel studies at UCLA argues that it’s important to acknowledge how Israel’s actions fuel a lot of the anger directed at Jews.
Good piece, but in the last paragraph, the writer makes a distinction between his idea and Hasan's Piker's recent remarks..but the link he gives shows that Hasan Piker's comment is very similar to what he says.
Waxman writes: "What I am advocating is the need to draw distinctions between Jews and Israel and between Judaism and Zionism. Blurring these distinctions...does not protect Jews; it endangers them."
this is nearly exactly what Has Piker says: "..this connection between Israel and Zionism that is expressed over and over again through a lot of those Jewish institutions...is teach people that Jews are monolithic. And this is ..a very dangerous mode of propaganda".
They are both saying something very similar. The difference is Waxman is putting the responsibility to differentiate on others, while Piker is focusing on the Jewish community. They both have a point.
Waxman really doesn't address at all that the 'conflation' of Jewish identity with Zionism and Israel is very often (I would argue, most often) pushed by those who support Israel's actions, and who then use this conflation to label anyone who criticizes Israel or Zionism as antisemitic.
Of course there are plenty in the US who are not at all Jewish but vehemently support Israel and call themselves Zionists, and there are many critics of Israel's actions that are Jewish, as Waxman points out. But his argument lacks the point that there are indeed many self-identified 'Jewish institutions' that are strongly pro-Israel and pro-Zionism, and use that conflation to attack any critics. AIPAC, the modern ADL. the AJC, and the Jewish Federations of North America are just a few examples.
To be clear, none of that should suggest violence against anyone is justified by any association. But I don't think the writer is so far apart of Piker as he claims..the 'conflation' he writes of is constantly weaponized by Israel's defenders, to the detriment of the Jewish people, and even more to the victims of Israel's violence. That was Piker's point.
Good grief! What a lot of confused double speak-- this but also that, this but not that-- and the final return to the self serving canard: Jews' "attachment" to Israel is just fine and dandy! WHY???? Hasan Piker is correct: Jewish people everywhere MUST disavow allegiance to Israel which has UNAMBIGUOUSLY revealed itself to be a genocidal apartheid CRIMINAL state! Why should anyone be allowed to feel any allegiance to outright evil? Thats plain crazy
That is categorically false. Iran's legal system explicitly classifies people by religion and applies different personal-status rules, religious freedoms, restrictions, and in some cases, criminal-law consequences according to religious identity.
The key difference here is that Iran and Muslim states aren't actively inserting themselves into American politics. My old alma mater? They had a few completely peaceful Gaza protests and the university president (in consultation with Biden's DoE) overnight banned assemblies in places students had been meeting for generations. They then posted a sniper on the roof of the student union building. These people signaled they were willing to go full Kent State over Gaza. No such equivalent for Muslim countries.
AIPAC is openly supporting outright election deniers so long as they give a blank check to America. That's treasonous and extremely damaging. No such equivalent for Muslim-affiliated groups. Israel is freely murdering US citizens and bombing US allies. No such equivalent for Muslim states--at least not before we punched first. When health insurance was murdering my family, I called my congresspeople over years begging for help. Didn't get a single call back. Meanwhile all of them were talking up the importance of giving infinite weapons money to Israel. No such equivalent for Muslim countries.
Israel is rapidly becoming the Imperial Japan or Nazi Germany of our time. Maybe a few Muslim organizations would do that if they could. But they aren't, and Israel is right now in real time in front of us.
My family is Japanese-American and I think American Jews are increasingly in a painful spot reminiscent of Japanese-Americans. Can you think of how much worse anti-Japanese sentiment and discrimination would've been if the Japanese-American political establishment were prancing around telling other Americans that we all had to be loyal to Imperial Japan, that we had to use our taxpayer funds to give them everything they wanted while undermining America, enslaving Korea, and genociding China? If prominent Japanese-Americans were committing mass treason on behalf of a foreign state and it was so normalized in our political class that they were untouchable despite their crimes?
I couldn't read past your first statement, which is profoundly untrue. Muslim states have over 500 foreign registered lobbyists in the US, and these states spend over $16B annually on American Universities.
Yes. As foreign registered lobbyists. They're there and we can argue about money in politics. But the difference is incomparable. Far more passive. While people were literally getting fired, arrested, or threatened with violence for criticizing Israel. Please, tell me when someone was arrested for criticizing Iran. Please, tell me when praising Iran onstage and pledging loyalty was a litmus test for getting support in a primary.
And I'm sorry, but if you're not willing to even read the argument then I'm not sure how anyone can engage with you or treat you as good faith here.
Glad you can admit you were wrong. When someone starts with blatantly false information, why would one bother to go any further and listen to what else they have to say?
Rather than stating generic claims, provide specific examples, as I'm not going to second-guess how you arrived at your point of view.
This is what I wrote: "The key difference here is that Iran and Muslim states aren't ACTIVELY inserting themselves into American politics."
I stand by it. It's passive compared to what Israel is doing. Israel is actively inserting itself into American politics in a way we've never seen from any other foreign country after the British.
The right wing Heritage Foundation after getting Project 2025 off to a running start with Cheeto’s Nazi regime with Vought in charge, has now begun a new Esther project. This one is to use antisemitism as a tool to go after political opponents.
The first step is to find Jewish people who have been antisemitic targets which is why DOJ is asking the UPenn for names of Jewish faculty. Next is to use these found antisemites and designate them as members of the Hamas Support Network(HSN) which is deemed as a complex web of entities, individuals, and activities that span both its primary area of operation in Gaza and extends globally.
In exercising free speech in opposition to the genocidal atrocities in Gaza in university settings or in public forums, exploiting antisemitism as a trope can get you labeled as a supporter of the HSN.
The final step in Project Esther is to label anyone exercising free speech about matters in Gaza as part of a terrorist organization. This will get your visas revoked according to Cheeto’s secretary of state Hermann Goring(aka Rubio). Universities will have to watch their student populations carefully. Social media will be monitored and weaponized.
To their credit several Jewish organizations have pushed back against this attack on free speech using antisemitism as a Nazi weapon, seeing it for what it is. DOJ lost their case with UPenn over turning over Jewish faculty names.
The notion that applying a religious symbol on a flag automatically makes it representative of a religion (or a 'race' as the judge puts it) - would make any perceived desecration or violation of many of the world's flags an act of religious discrimination.
All the flags of the very-Christian Scandinavian states have a Christian cross. So does the flag of England...many flags from the Caribbean and South America have crosses and other purposeful Christian symbols. So do many US state flags..the Union jack...Quebec..Northern Ireland, Scotland...
All of these flags were made to express a Christian 'identity and peoplehood'.
The Zionist AshkeNAZI who made the Haavara Agreement with the Nazi Party in 1933 to spare 60,000+ Zionist AshkeNAZI to colonize Palestine while the other jews went to the camps. This agreement was the foundation of Israel.
Israel wouldn't exist without the Nazi Party in more ways than one.
What’s the Islamic state? If synagogues don’t want to be associated with Israel they shouldn’t have the flag in their synagogue. Most but not all Jews in the United States support Israel and you can see it clearly on every pro Israel post on social media. I can go on the World Surf League Instagram page and on every post about the female Israeli surfer you will see the most demented comments from Jews and Israelis if the female surfer is criticized. The reality is that Zionists are the most evil bigots in the world. Including Jewish ones. Any criticism of them or their government is responded to with the most hateful and disgusting rhetoric. They’re very proud to be killing innocent people and they are not one bit afraid of telling you.
I interact with Muslim merchants,and have worked side by side with fellow employees that are Muslim and never once does/ did 911 pop into my thoughts. Oh, for the days of a simple assault.
Mr. Waxman spends a lot of words, but misses the point. Thought becomes criminal only when it devolves into criminal behavior. "I hate Jews and therefore I will attack a Jew" becomes criminal if the attack occurs. But the crime is a hate crime, antisemitic, only with the presence of an anti-semitic motive. What the Zionists (and State operatives) are successfully accomplishing is to discard the motive -- so that attacking any symbol, however closely connected to Judaism/Jews, is a hate crime. But more insidiously, Zionists and their supporters have created a criminal act out of the expression of thought.
The protester who tore the Israeli flag off may have been anti-semitic or anti-Zionist, or both. Here, I'm not advocating prosecution, but, that attack was the wrongful act. If a hate crime is to carry a different penalty, the motive, not the symbol, must be considered.
"What complicates matters in the case of Jews and Israel is that most American Jews have an emotional attachment to Israel (around six in 10 in surveys express such an attachment), and this attachment is a product of their Jewish identity. They care about Israel, which, it must be stressed, is not the same as supporting everything it does." Let me share a story about one such Jewish American, a retired dentist, who has a deep attachment to Israel, many (or most?) of whom are seriously under-informed. I've witnessed this many times.
I had dinner with a client a few weeks ago & after a bit too much wine was imbibed, he decided to share James Michener's book "The Source" with me and quote it as historical fact. This is an intelligent man, who I convinced that over 80% of Israelis support the genocide (stop calling it "a war" PLEASE) only after "googling" it. He was shocked. A conversation, then an argument, ensued. At a certain point, I pronounced: I'm leaving and did. I hope his curiosity was piqued sufficiently to continue "researching" beyond Michener's book!!
Waxman is right that Jews should never be treated as proxies for the Israeli government. But his argument about the Israeli flag goes too far by treating it as merely a national symbol. The Magen David was chosen precisely because it represents Jewish identity and peoplehood. The same is true in many Muslim-majority countries whose flags deliberately incorporate Islamic symbols. A Saudi flag bearing the Shahada or Pakistan’s crescent does not cease to carry Islamic meaning simply because it is also a national flag.
That is why I find Judge McFadden’s reasoning more persuasive than the authors. He did not say that criticism of Israel, or even burning an Israeli flag, is automatically antisemitic. He looked at the context: a Jewish person was allegedly physically attacked while wearing a symbol that carries both Israeli and Jewish meaning. The better principle is that the symbol is evidence, not a verdict. Context determines whether hostility toward Israel crosses into hostility toward Jews.
The context was a protest of Israel's ongoing occupation and mass civilian killings in Gaza by Israel at the time (which of course hasn't stopped, nearly three years after this protest happened).
This 'context' is very clearly and obviously about the actions of the state of Israel, not the Jewish people.
Not true. The context is the individual, not the event. This was a personal, physical, violent attack on an individual. If the positions were reversed, you'd be screaming it was Islamophobic, and I'd agree.
This entire thesis seems dangerously like the All Lives Matter pathetic argument here in the USA. All Lives are NOT currently in collective peril. As the metaphor goes, when a house is actually on fire it’s ridiculous (and deathly) to say we need to worry about every house on the block equally. Israel is killing people (and has been since its establishment) with impunity on and across pretty much every border it theoretically has. When folks are still going on exciting and safe vacations in Israel while entire populations within kilometers are being annihilated, denied human rights, targeted by AI weapons, have no access to legal protections, no protection afforded by the entire rest of the world… we’re supposed to worry about people who proudly connect themselves with Israel having their feelings hurt?
Shortly after October 7th an acquaintance of mine took her 8 year old daughter on vacation to Israel for Chanukah. And yesterday a friend and neighbour told me her 92 year old neighbour travels to Israel every year and will be going soon.
While Israel is flattening towns, breaking up roadways, etc etc (you all know the massive list of deplorable actions) commercial airlines’ routes are not disrupted into and out of Israel???? I guess that’s what they mean by their right to exist. They can host tourists while anyone who hinders their expansion of territory or resources becomes a refugee and buries their family members’ remaining body parts.
Pulling off a woman’s hijab is not the same as removing someone’s religious jewelry! No one should be out there pulling anything off of anyone else, but those are two completely different violations and the former is explicitly violent and sacrilegious.
The Hebrew Bible is quite comfortable with visible signs of Jewish identity; some are "commanded," some are not, but you're trying to make a distinction without a difference. Any Jewish (or Muslim) symbolism, ripped off of someone, is inherently antisemitic (or, respectively, Islamophobic.)
Good piece, but in the last paragraph, the writer makes a distinction between his idea and Hasan's Piker's recent remarks..but the link he gives shows that Hasan Piker's comment is very similar to what he says.
Waxman writes: "What I am advocating is the need to draw distinctions between Jews and Israel and between Judaism and Zionism. Blurring these distinctions...does not protect Jews; it endangers them."
this is nearly exactly what Has Piker says: "..this connection between Israel and Zionism that is expressed over and over again through a lot of those Jewish institutions...is teach people that Jews are monolithic. And this is ..a very dangerous mode of propaganda".
They are both saying something very similar. The difference is Waxman is putting the responsibility to differentiate on others, while Piker is focusing on the Jewish community. They both have a point.
Waxman really doesn't address at all that the 'conflation' of Jewish identity with Zionism and Israel is very often (I would argue, most often) pushed by those who support Israel's actions, and who then use this conflation to label anyone who criticizes Israel or Zionism as antisemitic.
Of course there are plenty in the US who are not at all Jewish but vehemently support Israel and call themselves Zionists, and there are many critics of Israel's actions that are Jewish, as Waxman points out. But his argument lacks the point that there are indeed many self-identified 'Jewish institutions' that are strongly pro-Israel and pro-Zionism, and use that conflation to attack any critics. AIPAC, the modern ADL. the AJC, and the Jewish Federations of North America are just a few examples.
To be clear, none of that should suggest violence against anyone is justified by any association. But I don't think the writer is so far apart of Piker as he claims..the 'conflation' he writes of is constantly weaponized by Israel's defenders, to the detriment of the Jewish people, and even more to the victims of Israel's violence. That was Piker's point.
Good grief! What a lot of confused double speak-- this but also that, this but not that-- and the final return to the self serving canard: Jews' "attachment" to Israel is just fine and dandy! WHY???? Hasan Piker is correct: Jewish people everywhere MUST disavow allegiance to Israel which has UNAMBIGUOUSLY revealed itself to be a genocidal apartheid CRIMINAL state! Why should anyone be allowed to feel any allegiance to outright evil? Thats plain crazy
Well, yeah, but how do you prevent "feelings of allegiance"? ICE seems to have cornered that market already. See my later comment.
By your logic, then every Muslim MUST disavow Iran, and its proxies Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis
Iran doesn’t have a separate legal system, Justice system and citizenship rules based on what religion you follow.
That is categorically false. Iran's legal system explicitly classifies people by religion and applies different personal-status rules, religious freedoms, restrictions, and in some cases, criminal-law consequences according to religious identity.
The key difference here is that Iran and Muslim states aren't actively inserting themselves into American politics. My old alma mater? They had a few completely peaceful Gaza protests and the university president (in consultation with Biden's DoE) overnight banned assemblies in places students had been meeting for generations. They then posted a sniper on the roof of the student union building. These people signaled they were willing to go full Kent State over Gaza. No such equivalent for Muslim countries.
AIPAC is openly supporting outright election deniers so long as they give a blank check to America. That's treasonous and extremely damaging. No such equivalent for Muslim-affiliated groups. Israel is freely murdering US citizens and bombing US allies. No such equivalent for Muslim states--at least not before we punched first. When health insurance was murdering my family, I called my congresspeople over years begging for help. Didn't get a single call back. Meanwhile all of them were talking up the importance of giving infinite weapons money to Israel. No such equivalent for Muslim countries.
Israel is rapidly becoming the Imperial Japan or Nazi Germany of our time. Maybe a few Muslim organizations would do that if they could. But they aren't, and Israel is right now in real time in front of us.
My family is Japanese-American and I think American Jews are increasingly in a painful spot reminiscent of Japanese-Americans. Can you think of how much worse anti-Japanese sentiment and discrimination would've been if the Japanese-American political establishment were prancing around telling other Americans that we all had to be loyal to Imperial Japan, that we had to use our taxpayer funds to give them everything they wanted while undermining America, enslaving Korea, and genociding China? If prominent Japanese-Americans were committing mass treason on behalf of a foreign state and it was so normalized in our political class that they were untouchable despite their crimes?
I couldn't read past your first statement, which is profoundly untrue. Muslim states have over 500 foreign registered lobbyists in the US, and these states spend over $16B annually on American Universities.
Yes. As foreign registered lobbyists. They're there and we can argue about money in politics. But the difference is incomparable. Far more passive. While people were literally getting fired, arrested, or threatened with violence for criticizing Israel. Please, tell me when someone was arrested for criticizing Iran. Please, tell me when praising Iran onstage and pledging loyalty was a litmus test for getting support in a primary.
And I'm sorry, but if you're not willing to even read the argument then I'm not sure how anyone can engage with you or treat you as good faith here.
Glad you can admit you were wrong. When someone starts with blatantly false information, why would one bother to go any further and listen to what else they have to say?
Rather than stating generic claims, provide specific examples, as I'm not going to second-guess how you arrived at your point of view.
This is what I wrote: "The key difference here is that Iran and Muslim states aren't ACTIVELY inserting themselves into American politics."
I stand by it. It's passive compared to what Israel is doing. Israel is actively inserting itself into American politics in a way we've never seen from any other foreign country after the British.
And I provided paragraphs of specific examples.
Israel is committing atrocities. Those groups you mention are fighting for their freedom from Israeli atrocities.
Project Esther
The right wing Heritage Foundation after getting Project 2025 off to a running start with Cheeto’s Nazi regime with Vought in charge, has now begun a new Esther project. This one is to use antisemitism as a tool to go after political opponents.
The first step is to find Jewish people who have been antisemitic targets which is why DOJ is asking the UPenn for names of Jewish faculty. Next is to use these found antisemites and designate them as members of the Hamas Support Network(HSN) which is deemed as a complex web of entities, individuals, and activities that span both its primary area of operation in Gaza and extends globally.
In exercising free speech in opposition to the genocidal atrocities in Gaza in university settings or in public forums, exploiting antisemitism as a trope can get you labeled as a supporter of the HSN.
The final step in Project Esther is to label anyone exercising free speech about matters in Gaza as part of a terrorist organization. This will get your visas revoked according to Cheeto’s secretary of state Hermann Goring(aka Rubio). Universities will have to watch their student populations carefully. Social media will be monitored and weaponized.
To their credit several Jewish organizations have pushed back against this attack on free speech using antisemitism as a Nazi weapon, seeing it for what it is. DOJ lost their case with UPenn over turning over Jewish faculty names.
Stopped reading article when I first saw “Jewish race”. What stupidity!
That comment was a quote from the judge in the relevant court case,. It was not a statement from the writer.
The notion that applying a religious symbol on a flag automatically makes it representative of a religion (or a 'race' as the judge puts it) - would make any perceived desecration or violation of many of the world's flags an act of religious discrimination.
All the flags of the very-Christian Scandinavian states have a Christian cross. So does the flag of England...many flags from the Caribbean and South America have crosses and other purposeful Christian symbols. So do many US state flags..the Union jack...Quebec..Northern Ireland, Scotland...
All of these flags were made to express a Christian 'identity and peoplehood'.
I am very specific in my criticism of Zionism.
The Zionist AshkeNAZI who made the Haavara Agreement with the Nazi Party in 1933 to spare 60,000+ Zionist AshkeNAZI to colonize Palestine while the other jews went to the camps. This agreement was the foundation of Israel.
Israel wouldn't exist without the Nazi Party in more ways than one.
What’s the Islamic state? If synagogues don’t want to be associated with Israel they shouldn’t have the flag in their synagogue. Most but not all Jews in the United States support Israel and you can see it clearly on every pro Israel post on social media. I can go on the World Surf League Instagram page and on every post about the female Israeli surfer you will see the most demented comments from Jews and Israelis if the female surfer is criticized. The reality is that Zionists are the most evil bigots in the world. Including Jewish ones. Any criticism of them or their government is responded to with the most hateful and disgusting rhetoric. They’re very proud to be killing innocent people and they are not one bit afraid of telling you.
Excellent article; thank you.
I interact with Muslim merchants,and have worked side by side with fellow employees that are Muslim and never once does/ did 911 pop into my thoughts. Oh, for the days of a simple assault.
Mr. Waxman spends a lot of words, but misses the point. Thought becomes criminal only when it devolves into criminal behavior. "I hate Jews and therefore I will attack a Jew" becomes criminal if the attack occurs. But the crime is a hate crime, antisemitic, only with the presence of an anti-semitic motive. What the Zionists (and State operatives) are successfully accomplishing is to discard the motive -- so that attacking any symbol, however closely connected to Judaism/Jews, is a hate crime. But more insidiously, Zionists and their supporters have created a criminal act out of the expression of thought.
The protester who tore the Israeli flag off may have been anti-semitic or anti-Zionist, or both. Here, I'm not advocating prosecution, but, that attack was the wrongful act. If a hate crime is to carry a different penalty, the motive, not the symbol, must be considered.
"What complicates matters in the case of Jews and Israel is that most American Jews have an emotional attachment to Israel (around six in 10 in surveys express such an attachment), and this attachment is a product of their Jewish identity. They care about Israel, which, it must be stressed, is not the same as supporting everything it does." Let me share a story about one such Jewish American, a retired dentist, who has a deep attachment to Israel, many (or most?) of whom are seriously under-informed. I've witnessed this many times.
I had dinner with a client a few weeks ago & after a bit too much wine was imbibed, he decided to share James Michener's book "The Source" with me and quote it as historical fact. This is an intelligent man, who I convinced that over 80% of Israelis support the genocide (stop calling it "a war" PLEASE) only after "googling" it. He was shocked. A conversation, then an argument, ensued. At a certain point, I pronounced: I'm leaving and did. I hope his curiosity was piqued sufficiently to continue "researching" beyond Michener's book!!
Et tu, Zeteo?
Waxman is right that Jews should never be treated as proxies for the Israeli government. But his argument about the Israeli flag goes too far by treating it as merely a national symbol. The Magen David was chosen precisely because it represents Jewish identity and peoplehood. The same is true in many Muslim-majority countries whose flags deliberately incorporate Islamic symbols. A Saudi flag bearing the Shahada or Pakistan’s crescent does not cease to carry Islamic meaning simply because it is also a national flag.
That is why I find Judge McFadden’s reasoning more persuasive than the authors. He did not say that criticism of Israel, or even burning an Israeli flag, is automatically antisemitic. He looked at the context: a Jewish person was allegedly physically attacked while wearing a symbol that carries both Israeli and Jewish meaning. The better principle is that the symbol is evidence, not a verdict. Context determines whether hostility toward Israel crosses into hostility toward Jews.
The context was a protest of Israel's ongoing occupation and mass civilian killings in Gaza by Israel at the time (which of course hasn't stopped, nearly three years after this protest happened).
This 'context' is very clearly and obviously about the actions of the state of Israel, not the Jewish people.
Not true. The context is the individual, not the event. This was a personal, physical, violent attack on an individual. If the positions were reversed, you'd be screaming it was Islamophobic, and I'd agree.
This entire thesis seems dangerously like the All Lives Matter pathetic argument here in the USA. All Lives are NOT currently in collective peril. As the metaphor goes, when a house is actually on fire it’s ridiculous (and deathly) to say we need to worry about every house on the block equally. Israel is killing people (and has been since its establishment) with impunity on and across pretty much every border it theoretically has. When folks are still going on exciting and safe vacations in Israel while entire populations within kilometers are being annihilated, denied human rights, targeted by AI weapons, have no access to legal protections, no protection afforded by the entire rest of the world… we’re supposed to worry about people who proudly connect themselves with Israel having their feelings hurt?
Shortly after October 7th an acquaintance of mine took her 8 year old daughter on vacation to Israel for Chanukah. And yesterday a friend and neighbour told me her 92 year old neighbour travels to Israel every year and will be going soon.
While Israel is flattening towns, breaking up roadways, etc etc (you all know the massive list of deplorable actions) commercial airlines’ routes are not disrupted into and out of Israel???? I guess that’s what they mean by their right to exist. They can host tourists while anyone who hinders their expansion of territory or resources becomes a refugee and buries their family members’ remaining body parts.
Well said, Professor. Thank you for clarifying this issue.
Pulling off a woman’s hijab is not the same as removing someone’s religious jewelry! No one should be out there pulling anything off of anyone else, but those are two completely different violations and the former is explicitly violent and sacrilegious.
Why is one more sacrilegious than the other?
Look at the functions. Adorning oneself with a symbol that is meaningful to you, versus following a scriptural rule.
The Hebrew Bible is quite comfortable with visible signs of Jewish identity; some are "commanded," some are not, but you're trying to make a distinction without a difference. Any Jewish (or Muslim) symbolism, ripped off of someone, is inherently antisemitic (or, respectively, Islamophobic.)