The new pro-ayatollah antisemitism

Terrorism is a method designed to obliterate the enemy—to eliminate it, immobilize it and render it irrelevant.

That was the logic of the Shoah. And today, a similar logic is visible in the attempt to criminalize the Jewish people and physically attack them, just as Israel itself is attacked.

It is a profound miscalculation. Instead of weakening the Jews, their identification with the Jewish state strengthens them.

Yet a disturbing new phenomenon has emerged. Antisemitism is multiplying while simultaneously adopting a strange and astonishing posture: the defense of the ayatollahs.

Even respected newspapers and television panels portray the Iranian regime—and its proxy Hezbollah—as victims of “Zionist imperialism.” Some Italian outlets now speak of a supposed “Lebanese genocide,” expanding the accusation to Israel’s necessary war against Hezbollah aggression.

This inversion is not new. For decades, antisemitism has disguised itself as criticism of Israel.

It began with the infamous 1975 United Nations resolution declaring “Zionism equals racism.” It continued through the Durban conference of 2001 and through the obsessive campaigns at the United Nations, embodied by figures such as Francesca Albanese.

Billions have been spent promoting accusations that Israel is colonialist, genocidal and criminal.

Reality has been turned upside down. Israel—threatened with genocide for decades and attacked on Oct. 7, 2023, with that explicit aim while Iran orchestrated the violence—has been transformed into the supposed enemy of humanity.

The step from portraying Jews as monsters to attacking them is very short.

The attacks are becoming routine: assaults on children and mothers in parks, on people praying, on students—from Manchester to Bondi and beyond.

Yet what still astonishes is the willingness to defend the Iranian regime and Hezbollah simply to demonize Israel.

We are told that Israel dragged Donald Trump into the war. That rabbis are responsible. That Benjamin Netanyahu is the culprit. And some commentators even ask whether the ayatollahs were truly so dangerous after all.

Never mind the IAEA reports, the evidence of enriched uranium or the regime’s own declarations.

Thus, the most brutal regime in the Middle East—a regime that violates every human right—becomes a pillar of the new antisemitism because it attacks Israel. The hatred of Jews merges seamlessly with anti-Americanism.

The war has ignited this phenomenon. Attacks on Jewish institutions have followed one after another across Europe and North America.

In Amsterdam, a Jewish school was bombed. In Liège, a synagogue was attacked. Incidents followed in Greece and Rotterdam. In Michigan, a Lebanese terrorist attempted to massacre children at a synagogue kindergarten before killing himself. Toronto witnessed attacks against both the Beth Avraham synagogue and the Shaarei Shomayim congregation.

Jewish communities worldwide have been warned they are targets. They are advised to remove their kippahs and Stars of David and avoid revealing their movements.

The hatred resembles the explosion of hatred that followed Oct. 7, 2023. It combines Islamist propaganda with elements of radical left-wing politics—activists, radical collectives, Salafi and Shi’ite preachers—fueled by money, ideology and political interests.

Just as happened after Oct. 7, the current wave of antisemitism sweeping across the world completely ignores the nature of Israel’s enemy—its cruelty, the killing of tens of thousands of its own citizens, the persecution of women dissidents and gay people, and its long-standing leadership of international terrorism.

It denies what the Iranian regime itself has repeatedly declared: its intention to destroy Israel, the United States and the West, and its use of nuclear blackmail as a strategic threat.

In this sense, the new form of antisemitism is even more disturbing than the one that hides behind the defense of the Palestinians. It now goes further—seeking to preserve and legitimize the ayatollahs’ regime itself.

Iran has quickly organized itself as a central actor in this campaign. Reports indicate coordination behind attacks on Jewish communities.

Yet the champions of antisemitism in politics and media refuse to acknowledge this reality. True to tradition, they blame the Jews.

But what we face today is a large and violent movement. It must be confronted before it consumes others as well.

The Jews already understand this. And this time, they will not be caught asleep.

© JNS