A New Low: Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu Is the Antisemites’ Cheerleader

In Europe and in the U.S., Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has no problem joining forces with the Holocaust deniers, antisemites and their enablers who pose a threat to the safety of Jews, as long as it serves his political interests

Haaretz Editorial. Sep 18, 2023

In the Jewish year 5783, which just ended, the Netanyahu government brought Israel to a new low also in regard to antisemitism. As the ancient hatred reared its head around the world, it was the Israeli government that lent legitimacy to its spreaders.

One of the most prominent examples of this was the public legitimacy that Foreign Minister Eli Cohen gave to the Romanian far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians, or AUR, despite the party leaders’ long history of antisemitism and Holocaust denial. This policy is expected to continue into the new year, now with the direct involvement of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. His first meeting in 5784 will be with the billionaire Elon Musk, who bought the social media platform Twitter last year and changed its name to X.

Leading Jewish organizations in the United States claim that since Musk’s takeover of the platform there has been a significant increase in both the volume of antisemitic content published on it and the scope of exposure to it. This trend led the Anti-Defamation League, the leading Jewish organization fighting antisemitism, to sharply criticize Musk. In response, he accused the ADL of deliberately undermining his business and expressed support for the posts by far-right individuals calling to ban the organization’s activities. Musk has about 160 million followers on X.

Netanyahu, who is flying to the West Coast for the express purpose of meeting Musk before heading back to New York later this week for the United Nations General Assembly, is expected to enter this heated debate Monday. There is no doubt that Musk will use the meeting with the Israeli prime minister to repel the claims that he supports antisemitism.

Netanyahu, for his part, will use the meeting to dampen criticism of the damage his government has caused to Israel’s high-tech industry in the past year. The meeting will give both men an image boost, but the fight against antisemitism will suffer and the policy of turning a blind eye to the dissemination of antisemitic content on social media will receive Israeli kashrut certification.

The Jewish Community Relations Council Bay Area, an organization that unites the Jewish communities across the San Francisco region, sent a letter to Netanyahu before Rosh Hashanah asking him to meet with community representatives and hear their concerns regarding Musk. It is highly doubtful that Netanyahu will accede to the request. For years, he has led a policy of disdain for U.S. Jewry and of favoring the evangelical Christian community, which is affiliated with the Republican Party, over Jews, who tend to support the Democratic Party.

As in Europe, in the United States Netanyahu has no problem joining forces with those who pose a threat to the safety of Jews, as long as it serves his political interests.

The above article is Haaretz’s lead editorial, as published in the Hebrew and English newspapers in Israel.