Per (very) popular request, I have turned my instagram stories from the other day into a post.
It turns out it’s actually very simple to voice harsh criticism of the State of Israel or Israeli policy without projecting vile, ancient antisemitic tropes onto the one Jewish state in the world. If you can understand that projecting racist tropes is not legitimate criticism of Sudan, Somalia, or the Congo, you can also understand that projecting antisemitic tropes onto Israel is not legitimate criticism.
If you don’t understand the latter, it’s simply because you don’t want to.
Yes, there are certainly bigger and much more violent antisemites than Ms. Rachel, but Ms. Rachel is normalizing antisemitic tropes to an audience of millions…an audience of young children. There’s a good reason so many Jews are expressing concern.
NOT ANTISEMITIC
“I want kids to live.”
“I want Palestinian kids to live.”
ANTISEMITIC
Whether this is her intention or not, the subtext here is that anyone that has expressed concern over her rhetoric and past associations — that is, the Jewish community — does not want kids to live. Implying the majority of the Jewish community are bloodthirsty child killers is a blood libel.
While we’re on the subject, while of course wanting children to live is not antisemitic, Ms. Rachel is not Jewish, so it’s also not on her to determine what is or isn’t antisemitism, a bigotry she is not the target of.
NOT ANTISEMITIC
“I disagree with slashing SNAP.”
“Slashing SNAP is wrong.”
“I do not believe we should send military aid to other countries.”
“I do not believe we should send military aid to Israel.”
ANTISEMITIC
The Jewish state has nothing to do whatsoever with the American government’s decision to slash SNAP provisions. Federal funding for SNAP – amounting to $100 billion dollars annually – is managed through the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The US foreign aid budget, including all foreign recipients of foreign aid, not just Israel, is $70-80 billion, or about 1% of the total federal budget. It’s distributed by the US Department of State. In 2024, the US sent Israel $3.8 billion in annual military financing and $14.3 billion in emergency supplemental aid, primarily for the Iron Dome, which is a defensive weapon. In other words, not only is it absurd to argue that this is what’s taking away from American children, but this money is not sent to Israel to “kill other children.”
Here, Ms. Rachel is echoing not one, but two antisemitic conspiracies: (1) blood libel, based on the false accusation that the money sent to Israel is sent to kill children, and (2) the conspiracy that Jews manipulate foreign governments for nefarious purposes, which is popular among white supremacists.
NOT ANTISEMITIC
“I am concerned/outraged about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and Israel’s role in it.”
ANTISEMITIC
Jesus died 2000 years ago, so no, he objectively cannot be starving in Gaza. Instead, the clear subtext here, whether Ms. Rachel intends it or not, is that the Jewish state is killing Jesus, which is nothing more than the recycling of the antisemitic conspiracy of Jewish deicide, or that Jews are collectively responsible for the death of Jesus. For 2000 years, Jews have been persecuted based on that false premise.
Likewise, if Ms. Rachel is sincerely concerned about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, she would express concern regardless of who is at fault. It’s interesting that, as she accuses Israel of “starving Jesus in Gaza,” she has never once mentioned widespread reports coming from Palestinians in Gaza themselves of Hamas siphoning aid to sell to its own civilian population at exorbitant prices and the UN’s reluctance or inability to distribute the existing aid, per video footage and their own admission. Why is that?
I am not Ms. Rachel, so I cannot know what her intentions are for certain. What I do know, however, is this:
- Nobody deserves to receive death threats, including Ms. Rachel and especially not her children.
- Ms. Rachel chose to be a public figure. As a public person making public statements, she is not immune from criticism.
- The language that Ms. Rachel uses to talk about Israel and Palestine is already trickling down to the way that parents talk to their young children about the conflict, and at a time when even the youngest Jewish children are being marginalized in the Diaspora (or worse), Jewish parents are right to express concern.
Consider here that a Ms. Rachel viewer has created a distinction between children who watch Ms. Rachel (anti-genocide) and those who don’t (pro-genocide). Think about the subtext, what this implies about all of the Jewish children whose parents choose not to bring her show into their homes. Is this what this parent is communicating to their child? How will this show up in the child’s interactions with Jewish children? Notice Ms. Rachel liked and shared the post.
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