The IDF is not just Israel's army: it is a symbol of Jewish self-defence
But now Jews are fighting back. Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis has blasted 'toxic Jew-hatred' posing as 'edgy political commentary'. The Jewish Leadership Council declaimed an 'obscene display of extremist hatred'. The anti-Zionists, meanwhile, have argued that Vylan's chant was nothing more than criticism of Israel and its military operation in Gaza.
In fact, they say, it is Vylan's detractors who are the real anti-Semites for conflating Israel with Jews. If the Palestinians must be patronised by grandstanding Westerners, they deserve better than these faint-hearted crybullies.
Not that the feelings of the Chief Rabbi or communal organisations have any impact on anti-Zionists. Lived experience is sacrosanct for every minority apart from Jews.
For a movement that appears to glory in violent rhetoric, when consequences rear their head they fold like a Hamas command centre paid a visit by the Israeli Air Force. They embrace nuance and complexity and all those other traits of the snivelling liberals they scorn. Their anti-Zionism retreats from banner slogans to multi-page footnotes.
Yes, they cavil, the IDF is a conscript army made up almost exclusively of Jews, but that doesn't mean calling for its 'death' is a call for death to Jews. (Disparate impact is another doctrine of the Left that applies to every minority except the Jews.)
Why do they cry ' death to the IDF'? The Israeli army is civilian led. Why not death to the Israeli prime minister, or the defence minister, or the security cabinet? It is not just a matter of what rhymes. The IDF is not just Israel's army; it is the symbol and the substance of Jewish self-defence and Jewish sovereignty. Without the IDF, there would be no Israel, and this is exactly what they want.
Across 2,000 years of exile from their homeland, Jews were reviled, calumnied, excluded, expelled, pogrommed, and exterminated. As the Passover Haggadah observes: 'Not only one has risen up against us to destroy us, but in every generation they rise up to destroy us.' The restoration of Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel was about ensuring that future generations had a means of defending themselves. More would come to destroy them, but this time they'd be prepared.
Strong Jews, sovereign Jews, Jews you can't push around. For two millennia, these were concepts not merely revolutionary but fantastical. But now they are lived out every day in Israel. Political anti-Zionism is a project to separate the Jewish people from the theory and practice of Jewish self-determination. The Israeli army is all that stands between 'death to the IDF' and 'death to the Jews'.
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