Photo courtesy of Jeenah Moon via Getty Images

The Israel/Gaza conflict has resulted in a significant rise in hate crimes globally against both Jewish and Muslim people. Recently, there was a mob of people at the Makhachkala Uytash Airport in Dagestan, Russia. 

In an attack likened to an attempted pogrom or the organized massacre of an ethnic group — typically Jewish people — we saw many wanting to possibly murder anyone Jewish or Israeli who came off a flight from Tel Aviv.

Within the U.S., there have been significant concerns about rising antisemitism on college campuses, with one example of a student at Cornell University allegedly threatening to shoot Jewish students on campus.

Jewish and Israeli people are not the only groups that have faced discrimination as of late. Only one week after Hamas attacked Israel, a landlord in Illinois stabbed one of his Muslim tenants and her six-year-old child, with only the mother surviving. 

These are just some examples of the rising tide of hate crimes in the U.S. and globally that have been motivated by the conflict in Israel and Gaza.

Hate crimes against Jewish people have been motivated by Israel’s disturbingly brutal campaign in Gaza after the attack by Hamas, which has resulted in the death of around 8,000 Palestinians, most of whom are women and children.

There was also a recent attack on a refugee camp in Jabaliya, which was reported to have killed at least 50 people after six Israel air strikes hit the camp.

The justification behind these hate crimes varies as some are genuine antisemites who use the war to commit and call for violence against Jewish people. Others are angry and are taking that anger out in a misguided way, often being fooled by purposeful antisemites. 

The main issue here is the conflation of Jewish people, Israeli people and the Israeli government as all being a part of the same group when this is untrue. Jewish people live across the world and have different political and religious beliefs.

Israeli people can also have different religious and political beliefs. Not everyone in Israel is Jewish or agrees with the actions of the Israeli government. The Israeli government is a state like any other that seeks to sustain its existence and power through any means possible, which can include the oppression of Palestinians.

The Israeli government is the only one to blame for the attacks on Gaza, as their military bombed Gaza and spread propaganda to justify their actions.

Israeli people have grown up under a state that teaches them that Palestinians are their enemies, and so is anyone else who does not support Israel. They are no more to blame for the behavior of Israel than the average Russian taught to believe the U.S. and much of Europe are their enemy and are to blame for the actions of the Russian government. 

This is especially true, considering not all Israeli people agree with the actions of their government. For this dissent, Israeli schools and institutions have been cracking down on Israeli citizens who speak out in any form about Israel’s actions.

The conflation of Palestinians, Muslims and Hamas has also led to similar violence, and a similar thing can be said about how Hamas does not represent all Palestinians or Muslims. 

These groups shouldn’t be conflated as this leads to harm done to innocent people. Jewish people being synonymous with Israeli people plays into long-standing anti-semitic ideas that Jewish people are not loyal to their country or community but are instead to “the Jewish race and state.” Jewish people, like every other group of people, are not a monolith, and they are not represented by one single state. 

Just as the conflation of people, religions and states can be used to push hatred and discrimination, this conflation can also be used to silence dissent and criticism against the actions of the Israeli government. 

Students and student groups have been doxed, targeted and harassed for taking an anti-Israel stance. One example of this is a billionaire named Bill Ackman, who called for the names of Harvard University students who signed a letter stating Israel was solely to blame for the attack by Hamas. Another student at NYU’s Student Bar Association who said Israel “bears full responsibility for this tremendous loss of life” lost a job offer from a law firm that said it would refuse to tolerate any antisemitism.

There are also examples of ultra-Orthodox Jewish people being assaulted by Israeli police for their support of Palestine and their opposition to Israel. They didn’t target hate against Jewish people, only voicing disapproval of the actions of the state of Israel and the idea of a religious and ethnic supremacist state that has discriminated against non-Ashkenazi Jewish people located in an area religiously and culturally significant to many different groups.

There is legitimate criticism of the behavior and structure of the state of Israel that has been buried under accusations of antisemitism. If positive change is to happen in the region, there must be a positive dialogue where grievances are heard.