West Marin is more than 7,000 miles from Israel and the war in Gaza, but events there since Oct. 7 have caused a lot of emotional distress here. Horrific actions deserve unequivocal condemnation: Hamas killed 1,200 Israelis and took 240 hostages. Since that awful day five months ago, Israel has continuously bombed the small enclave of Gaza, where 2.2 million Palestinians live. The latest estimates put the death toll upward of 30,000, mostly children and women.

When we condemn what was done to innocent Jews in Israel on Oct. 7, we’re not accused of anti-Arab bigotry. Nor should we be. A single standard of human rights should apply. And nothing that Israel has ever done could possibly justify those atrocities by Hamas.

Meanwhile, if we condemn what has been done to innocent Palestinians in Gaza, we might be accused of antisemitism. Yet a single standard of human rights should apply. And nothing that Hamas has ever done could possibly justify those atrocities by Israel—atrocities made possible by the United States government. 

As retired Israeli Major General Yitzhak Brick said in late November: “All of our missiles, the ammunition, the precision-guided bombs, all the airplanes and bombs, it’s all from the U.S.” 

He added: “Everyone understands that we can’t fight this war without the United States. Period.”

Whether we like it or not, American taxpayers have a role in the mass killing that continues in Gaza. If we believe that the mass killing is wrong, we should say so. But some people don’t want us to.

That’s where the “antisemitism” accusation comes in handy. Denounce the killing of 1,200 innocent Israelis? Sure. But denounce the killing of tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians? No, no, no, that’s antisemitic.

While Israel continues to slaughter children, women and men who are no more guilty than the people you might see inside the Palace Market, the misuse of the antisemitism charge often boils down to: Be quiet. Don’t protest. Don’t even speak up.

Antisemitism does exist and should be condemned. At the same time, using the term to try to intimidate people into silence while Israel’s atrocities continue in Gaza is an abuse of the word and a disservice to everyone who wants a single standard of human rights.

The Jewish American author Anna Baltzer grew up knowing the evils of antisemitism. “Much of my family was killed in the Holocaust,” she wrote. “My grandparents arrived at Ellis Island traumatized by the unfathomable murder of their families in the gas chambers of Auschwitz while the world let it happen.” She added: “We must get clear that Israel’s wiping out of entire families in Gaza is not simply revenge for October 7; Israel is continuing its long-existing practice of forcing Palestinians out of Palestine and closing the door behind them.” 

Do Baltzer’s words make her antisemitic?

Soon after the Gaza war began, the president of the American Postal Workers Union, along with speaking out for a ceasefire, directly challenged the canard that conflates Zionist ideology with Judaism. Mark Dimondstein wrote in The Nation: “Being raised as a proud Jewish American, and facing my share of antisemitism, does not make me a supporter of Zionism, the settler movement dedicated to establishing and maintaining a Jewish ‘homeland’ through the occupation of Palestine.”

He added: “Following the Holocaust’s genocidal murder of six million Jews, there was a compelling worldwide sentiment for a safe haven for the Jewish people. One historical tragedy, however, does not justify another. Israel was created at the expense of the Palestinians, who were driven violently from their homes, forced into impoverished refugee camps, refused the right of return, and have suffered generations of trauma, degradation, settler aggressions, and the indignities of apartheid policies.”

Do Dimondstein’s words mean he is antisemitic?

The journalist Peter Beinart wrote in the New York Times in 2022: “In a terrible irony, the campaign against ‘antisemitism,’ as waged by influential Jewish groups and the U.S. government, has become a threat to freedom. It is wielded as a weapon against the world’s most respected human rights organizations and a shield for some of the world’s most repressive regimes. We need a different struggle against antisemitism. It should pursue Jewish equality, not Jewish supremacy, and embed the cause of Jewish rights in a movement for the human rights of all. In its effort to defend the indefensible in Israel, the American Jewish establishment has abandoned these principles.”

Do the words of Beinart, an orthodox Jew, mean he is antisemitic?

For that matter, when I write here that the Israeli government has been committing mass murder in Gaza every day for more than five months, does that mean I’m antisemitic?

There’s a word for seeing—and saying—that Israel is engaged in large-scale crimes against humanity. And that word isn’t “antisemitism.” It’s realism.

Norman Solomon is an Inverness Park resident and the author of “War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine.”