Am I Anti-Semitic?

This is an easy one. No. Unequivocally. Emphatically. Unquestioningly. Unhesitatingly. No. To be anti-Semitic is to be unchristian.

I am also not anti-Palestinian (many of whom ironically are Semitic); nor am I anti-Jew; nor anti-Muslim; nor anti-US. Nor anti-anything! I suppose one might suggest that I am anti-anti—and therefore, I am anti-something.

But let’s take this a little further. It is commonly asserted that to criticize Israel’s behavior towards the Palestinians is to be anti-Semitic. And the world is rightly cautious of anti-Semitism being only three generations removed from one of the greatest crimes against humanity in the holocaust. Understandable.

But I would assert that if you truly love someone, then you will hold them accountable for their actions. To turn a blind eye toward the ill behavior of anyone is unloving. The author of Hebrews notes: ‘for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, that we may share His holiness. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness’ (Heb 12:7-11)

To love someone, then, means that you believe that they are a being of value. And as such they need to be held accountable for their actions. The child that is not held accountable for their actions will only continue on the path of their destructive behavior—and this to their own detriment!

Therefore, to call attention to Israel’s behavior towards the Palestinians is to love Israel and the Palestinians (and I would add the US). It is also then an act of love on our part to reach out to those Christians who are blindly supporting Israel and in effect helping to perpetuating this conflict. They need to understand the serious harm that is occurring as a result of such views: harm to both Israel and Palestine, as well as to the people themselves—some of whom are our Christian brothers and sisters.

Therefore, it is, in actually, those who are advocating for the unquestioning support of Israel, and who turn their backs on the injustices perpetrated by the state of Israel, that are acting in an unloving manner towards Israel.

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