I appreciate your writing this. But I am an American Jew who does not like how Israel is conducting itself. What Israel does affects the extent to which antisemitism is manifested. A bunch of Muslims did 9/11, and perfectly decent Muslims, here and abroad, have been paying for it ever since. Maybe that's unfair, but the world is populated with humans, and that is how our species rolls.

When Jews get together, and one tells another something the import of which is not clear, the culturally cool reply is "Is that good for the Jews or bad for the Jews?" The question is not meant literally; it's just a way of saying "Why is that important?" while reminding each other that, as Jews, what's going on may affect us differently from how it affects others. Right now, what Israel is doing is "bad for the Jews."

Yes, just about everywhere is populated by settler-colonizers, but we don't want to see the historical sausage being made. Occupation of North America was indeed the Europeans' manifest destiny, but we still don't like the term, and when Hitler used pretty much the same reasoning for attacking Slavs, the rest of the world was repulsed by it.

The Allies may have thought that giving the Jews their own place, even if that meant displacing some non-Europeans, was a good idea, but conquest must be consolidated to become "history" rather than current events. The Zionist conquest of Palestine has not been consolidated; that it is ongoing contributes to antisemitism everywhere.

The saying "It's their fault, but it's our problem" comes to mind. Plenty of people are raised in and disposed to antisemitism. Some of such people just need an excuse to act out. What's happening in Gaza is that excuse. We can wish antisemitism weren't a thing, and we must not succumb to it by accepting second-class citizenship, but we do not help ourselves by defending depredations by other Jews. The Israeli response to 10/7 has been robust. But I say to Mr. Netanyahu, dayenu!