Jews around the world are reeling from the unprecedented surge of antisemitism that followed the Hamas-led Palestinian Arab attacks in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. They may feel helpless when confronted by the way the Jew-haters have mainstreamed tropes of antisemitism to demonize Israel and its supporters.
But, says JNS editor-in-chief, the answer to this problem is not to give up. Jews don’t merely need to wake up and fight back, but to do so effectively and win.
He’s joined in this week’s episode of “Think Twice” by JNS senior contributing writer Melanie Phillips, who has written a handbook for doing just that, titled Fighting the Hate: A Handbook for Jews Under Siege.
According to Phillips, many Jews have responded to the post-Oct. 7 tsunami of hate with shock and confusion. She says that Jews have an absolute duty to stand up against lies, against injustice, and to tell the truth. “It seemed to me that there was much that could be done if people had the right ideas about how best to go about this, " said Phillips. “And I thought, and I still think, that the organized Jewish world in the diaspora didn’t really have a strategy.”
Instead of playing defense, Phillips believes the Jewish world has to get off the back foot onto the front foot and go on the offensive. Yet too many are ignorant about the conflict with the Palestinians and the way leftist ideologues are spreading Hamas propaganda.
Part of the problem is what she calls “liberals with moral vertigo.”
Phillips says some Jews were so stunned on Oct. 7 by the people that they had thought were being oppressed by the Israelis, but had turned into barbaric, psychopathic, slaughterers for which there was absolutely no reasonable excuse, and they can’t process it. Yet she believes that the pro-Israel and sane Jewish community can make some headway with them. But, she says, the first thing is you have to park your anger and reach out to those who used to rationalize Palestinian behavior and try to reach them with the truth and the facts.
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