{"id":54175,"date":"2025-07-09T14:07:49","date_gmt":"2025-07-09T22:07:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=54175"},"modified":"2025-07-09T14:12:31","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T22:12:31","slug":"bill-astore-am-i-a-jew-hater","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2025\/07\/09\/bill-astore-am-i-a-jew-hater\/","title":{"rendered":"William Astore asks Am I a ‘Jew-Hater’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reprinted from Bracing Views<\/a> with the author\u2019s permission.<\/i><\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t know I was a \u201cJew-hater\u201d until I suggested in a comment that giving Bibi Netanyahu everything he wants (and then some) might not be the same as serving the national interests and security needs of the United States. Well, there, I said it. Maybe Bibi shouldn\u2019t get all the bombs and weapons and support he wants, whenever he wants and whatever Israel does with them.<\/p>\n

And for that, I became a \u201cJew-hater.\u201d I guess because I wasn\u2019t 100% subservient to Bibi.<\/p>\n

These are strange days in America. Congress can\u2019t jump to its collective feet quickly enough to applaud Bibi. Members of Congress proudly display Israeli flags outside their offices. Heck, a few members of Congress (notably Senator John Fetterman<\/a> of Pennsylvania) aren\u2019t happy unless they literally wrap the Israeli flag around their bodies.<\/p>\n

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Senator Fetterman (on the right) shows the proper deference to Israel<\/p><\/div>\n<\/picture>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

What gives? What accounts for this madness?<\/p>\n

Oh, I know some of the reasons. AIPAC. Christian evangelicals looking to the Second Coming. All the money ($100 million and more<\/a>) Miriam Adelson gave to Donald Trump. All the profits to be made from weaponry and war. The corporate media, bought and paid for by billionaires. And so on. Yet something deeper, more insidious, seems to be at work here.<\/p>\n

We used to have the \u201cAmerica, love it or leave it\u201d crowd. Now we have the \u201cIsrael, love it \u2013 or else\u201d crowd. In America!<\/p>\n

Of course, ad hominem attacks like \u201cJew-hater\u201d are meant to distract from real issues. People call you names when they can\u2019t think of intelligent and persuasive ways of challenging your arguments. Yet this is America, after all, where much of our discourse (such as it is) consists of name-calling and other forms of insults and slander.<\/p>\n

Honestly, I loved the response of another commenter to the \u201cJew-hater\u201d epithet. The person simply typed: YAWN.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re willing to think or write critically about Israel and the actions of its government and leaders, which indeed every American (and Israeli) should be, be prepared to be attacked as a Jew-hater, an anti-Semite, or worse. It comes with the territory. Even my Jewish friends who write critically are not immune. They, of course, are dismissed as \u201cself-hating Jews.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fortunately, it appears most Americans today are on to the game that\u2019s being played here. Progress, of a sort, even as Bibi continues to get everything he wants. Now Bibi says he\u2019ll nominate Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize.<\/p>\n

Did I say these are strange days?<\/p>\n

William J. Astore is a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF). He taught history for fifteen years at military and civilian schools. He writes at Bracing Views<\/a>. <\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author\u2019s permission. I didn\u2019t know I was a \u201cJew-hater\u201d until I suggested in a comment that giving Bibi Netanyahu everything he wants (and then some) might not be the same as serving the national interests and security needs of the United States. Well, there, I said it. Maybe Bibi […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":290,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[758],"class_list":["post-54175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":"Strange Days in America"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/290"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54175"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54175\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54182,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54175\/revisions\/54182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54175"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=54175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}