The recent murder of two Israeli embassy employees in Washington and the attack on the people attending a vigil for the Israeli captives in Gaza has poured fuel on the fire consuming the movement for Palestinians rights, supposedly justifying the harshest crackdown on protected political speech since the days of McCarthy and the congressional Un-American Activities Committee. The almost universal response to these crimes  – blaming the people who are protesting the unprecedented carnage wrought by the Israeli military in Gaza — highlights several troubling features of the state of debate over Israel/Palestine at this time.

First, as deplorable as these attacks undoubtedly were, they were not antisemitic. The two assailants didn’t target Jews so much as supporters of Israel. The fact that neither the news media, nor politicians, nor the officials of most major Jewish organizations will acknowledge the difference between antisemitism and anti-Zionism doesn’t mean there isn’t a clear difference. Sheila Katz, chief executive of theNational Council of Jewish Women, in a New York Times guest essay expressed thisconflation when she said, “I have watched the morphing of the word “Zionist” — the basic belief in Jewish self-determination — into a slur.” “Zionist” is a slur in the same sense that “imperialist” or “colonialist” is a slur, it is a name for a political doctrine that entails the domination and oppression of one people by another. As for the idea of “Jewish self-determination,” no ethnic or religious group has a right to self-determination if it means the right to live in a state that privileges their rights and well-being over others. That’s especially true if the ones demanding this right were colonial invaders bent on ridding the land of their indigenous inhabitants.

Second, those leading the anti-Palestinian charge aren’t even consistent when it comes to the relation between Judaism and Zionism. In the much-touted International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance “working definition” of “antisemitism,” along with the examples that tar criticism of Israel and Zionism with the antisemitic brush, we also get this so-called example of antisemitism: “Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel.” Also, the title of another NYT guest essay on this topic was entitled “This is the Tragic Consequence of Conflating Jews and Israel.” It seems that the leaders of the major Jewish organizations want to be able to declare that criticism of Israel and Zionism is an attack on Jews but then want to absolve Jewish institutions of any responsibility for Israel’s behavior. So, which is it? Either Jewish practice is inextricably bound up with Zionism, in which case it is that practice, and the network of major institutions around which that practice is organized, that is guilty of “conflating Jews and Israel.” Or there is a clear difference, in which case it’s time to stop interpreting every attack (whether peaceful or violent) on Israel as an attack on Jews. You can’t have it both ways.

But finally, the worst consequence of this constant drumbeat about antisemitism on the left, coming from the news media, political leaders of both parties, and the leaders of major American Jewish organizations, is not the threat to free speech here at home — though that threat is dire — it’s the enabling of Israel’s ongoing genocidal destruction of the Palestinian people. Of course, what happened to the embassy employees and the victims in Colorado was horrible, but really, in the face of the scale of destruction Israel is executing in Gaza, are the victims of these recent attacks in DC and Colorado the only people whose lives matter? Imagine what would happen if every time a concern about antisemitism were expressed by these leaders it was prefaced by “Of course this horrific nightmare Israel is carrying out must be stopped immediately ...” Think how many Gazans would be alive today if that practice had started a year and a half ago. Instead, it’s clear that, to those whipping up the hysteria about antisemitism, Palestinian lives just don’t matter.

Joseph Levine lives in Leverett.