\n<\/p>\n
I am a Palestinian. And increasingly, that fact alone is treated as a provocation.<\/p>\n
In recent months, I have watched anti-Semitism \u2014 a real, lethal form of hatred with a long and horrific history \u2014 be stripped of its meaning and weaponised to silence Palestinians, criminalise solidarity with us, and shield Israel from accountability as it carries out a genocide in Gaza. This is not about protecting Jewish people. It is about protecting power.<\/p>\n
The pattern is now impossible to ignore.<\/p>\n
A children\u2019s educator, Ms Rachel, whose entire public work is built around care, learning, and empathy, is branded \u201cAnti-Semite of the Year\u201d \u2014 not for her engaging in any form of hate speech, but for expressing concern for Palestinian children. For acknowledging that children in Gaza are being bombed, starved, and traumatised. For expressing compassion.<\/p>\n
As a Palestinian, I hear the message clearly: even empathy for our children is dangerous.<\/p>\n
Then there is Palestine Action, a protest movement that targets weapons manufacturers supplying Israel\u2019s military. Instead of being debated, challenged, or even criticised within a democratic framework, it is proscribed as a \u201cterrorist\u201d organisation, casually equated with ISIL (ISIS) \u2013 a group responsible for mass executions, sexual slavery, and genocidal violence.<\/p>\n
This comparison is not just obscene. It is deliberate. It collapses the meaning of \u201cterrorism\u201d so completely that political dissent becomes extremism by definition. Resistance becomes pathology. Protest becomes \u201cterror\u201d. And Palestinians, once again, are framed not as a people under occupation, but as a permanent threat.<\/p>\n
Language itself is now being criminalised. Phrases like \u201cglobalise the Intifada\u201d are banned without any serious engagement with history or meaning. Intifada \u2014 a word that literally means \u201cshaking off\u201d \u2014 is torn from its political context as an uprising against military occupation and reduced to a slur. Palestinians are denied even the right to name their resistance.<\/p>\n
At the same time, international law is being actively dismantled.<\/p>\n
Staff and judges at the International Criminal Court are sanctioned and intimidated for daring to investigate Israeli war crimes. Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on Palestine, has not only been sanctioned, but also relentlessly smeared \u2014 because she uses the language of international law to describe occupation, apartheid, and genocide.<\/p>\n
When international law is applied to African leaders, it is celebrated.
When it is applied to Israel, it is treated as an act of hostility.<\/p>\n
This brings us to Australia \u2014 and to one of the most revealing moments of all.<\/p>\n
After the horrific Bondi Beach attack, which shocked and horrified people across Australia, Israel\u2019s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused the Australian government of encouraging anti-Semitism. Not because of any incitement, not because of inflammatory rhetoric \u2014 but because Australia had moved towards recognising Palestine as a state.<\/p>\n
Read that again.<\/p>\n
The diplomatic recognition of Palestinian statehood \u2014 long framed as essential to peace and grounded in international law \u2014 is presented as a moral failing, even as a contributor to anti-Semitic violence. Palestinian existence itself is treated as the problem.<\/p>\n
What makes this moment so disturbing is not only that Netanyahu made this claim, but that so many centres of power ran with it rather than challenged it.<\/p>\n
Instead of forcefully rejecting the idea that recognising Palestinian rights could \u201cencourage anti-Semitism\u201d, governments, institutions, and commentators allowed the premise to stand. Some echoed it outright. Others stayed silent. Almost none confronted the dangerous logic at its core: that Palestinian political recognition is inherently destabilising, provocative, or threatening.<\/p>\n
This is how moral collapse happens \u2014 not with thunder, but with acquiescence.<\/p>\n
The result is not safety for the Jewish people, but erasure of the Palestinian people.<\/p>\n
As a Palestinian, I find it devastating.<\/p>\n
It means my identity is not merely contested \u2014 it is criminalised. My grief is not simply ignored \u2014 it is politicised. My demand for justice is not debated \u2014 it is pathologised as hatred.<\/p>\n
Anti-Semitism is real. It must be confronted seriously and without hesitation. The Jewish people deserve safety, dignity, and protection \u2014 everywhere. But when anti-Semitism is stretched to include children\u2019s educators, UN experts, international judges, protest movements, chants, words, and even the diplomatic recognition of Palestine, then the term no longer serves to protect Jewish people.<\/p>\n
It protects a state from accountability.<\/p>\n
Worse still, this weaponisation endangers Jews by collapsing Jewish identity into the actions of a government committing mass atrocities. It tells the world that Israel speaks for all Jews \u2014 and that anyone who objects must therefore be hostile to Jews themselves. That is not protection. It is recklessness masquerading as morality.<\/p>\n
For Palestinians like me, the psychological toll is immense.<\/p>\n
I am tired of having to preface every sentence with disclaimers.<\/p>\n
I am deeply pained by watching my people starve while being lectured about tone.<\/p>\n
I am angry that international law seems to apply only in certain politically convenient cases.<\/p>\n
And I am grieving \u2014 not just for Gaza, but for the moral collapse unfolding around it.<\/p>\n
Opposing genocide is not anti-Semitism.<\/p>\n
Solidarity is not \u201cterrorism\u201d.<\/p>\n
Recognising Palestine is not incitement.<\/p>\n
Naming your suffering is not violence.<\/p>\n
If the world insists on calling me an anti-Semite for refusing to accept the annihilation of my people, then it is not anti-Semitism that is being countered.<\/p>\n
It is genocide that is being justified.<\/p>\n
And history will remember who helped make that possible.<\/p>\n
The views expressed in this article are the author\u2019s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera\u2019s editorial stance.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n I am a Palestinian. And increasingly, that fact alone is treated as a provocation. In recent months, I have watched anti-Semitism \u2014 a real, lethal form of hatred with a long and horrific history \u2014 be stripped of its meaning and weaponised to silence Palestinians, criminalise solidarity with us, and shield Israel from accountability as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6793,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6792\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"