PHILOSEMITISM REQUIRES MORAL CLARITY:
Israel’s Elimination Project (Yuli Novak, 9/14/26, NY Times)
As a Jewish Israeli, I grew up inside that language. It turned violent domination into “security,” dispossession into “settlement” and large-scale violence into “self-defense.” That language draws much of its power from real fear. I know that fear. I grew up with it. That fear has many sources, including decades of armed attacks against Israelis. The Hamas-led attack of Oct. 7, 2023, has intensified it. Israeli political language manipulates it by dehumanizing Palestinians, collapsing them into a single category — namely, a threat. It uses violence by some to justify the control and oppression of an entire population. This is one way apartheid sustains itself.
The language I grew up with did not require me to deny Palestinian suffering. I could acknowledge it, even be horrified by it, while still regarding the system that produced it as fundamentally legitimate. Today, after years of deepening dehumanization, Palestinian suffering is simply ignored in much of Israeli public discourse. That is why the language of those who live under this system matters so much. The people who witness, endure and survive under that power can describe what their lives look like: unprotected, shaped by fear, vulnerability and uncertainty.
On Monday, B’Tselem is publishing a report on the process unfolding in the West Bank. It tells a story with deep roots. From the mass expulsion and displacement of Palestinians during the Nakba in 1948, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were displaced or expelled and the subsequent refusal of refugees’ right to return, through occupation, settlements and apartheid, Israeli policy has repeatedly worked to entrench Jewish sovereignty while making Palestinian presence and political life more precarious.