The centuries-old pattern of false accusations against Jews now finds its focus on the Jewish state.
Few accusations are as poisonous, persistent, and deadly as the libel. At its core, a libel is a falsehood presented as fact, maliciously designed to inflame hatred and justify violence. It is not an insult or a misunderstanding — it is a deliberate weapon.
For centuries, Jews have been singled out by such fabrications. In medieval Europe, Jews were accused of ritual murder (the infamous “blood libel”) supposedly kidnapping and killing Christian children to use their blood for Passover rituals. Entire communities were destroyed on the strength of this lie. When plague swept across Europe, Jews were accused of poisoning wells, a charge that sparked pogroms and massacres. Other fabrications accused Jews of host desecration, of conspiring in secret cabals to control governments and finance, and later of fomenting wars for profit.
Each of these libels was built on the same structure:
- A kernel of supposed “fact” (a missing child, a disease outbreak, an unpopular lender).
- A claim that did not withstand scrutiny.
- Repetition until it became embedded in the public imagination.
And when one libel was finally discredited, another arose in its place.
From the Jew to the Jewish State
In the modern era, these same libels have been recycled and refocused on the collective Jew: the State of Israel. The vocabulary has changed, but the structure is identical.
- The blood libel reappears in the claim that Israel deliberately kills Palestinian children, ignoring the tragic truth that Hamas embeds its fighters and weapons in civilian areas.
- The famine libel has been revived with accusations that Israel starves Gaza, despite Israel facilitating the entry of humanitarian aid daily — aid that Hamas routinely steals, hoards, and weaponises.
- The genocide libel — perhaps the most grotesque inversion of all — accuses Israel of the very crime Jews suffered in the Holocaust, even as Israel has repeatedly taken unprecedented measures in warfare to spare civilians.
- The coloniser libel seeks to erase Jewish indigeneity, portraying Israel as a foreign implant in the Middle East. It disregards millennia of Jewish presence in the land, the legal basis of the Mandate, and the return of an indigenous people to their homeland.
Each accusation shares the hallmarks of the libel: a selective “fact” inflated into a moral outrage, repeated until it sounds credible, then displaced by a new charge once it collapses under scrutiny.
Why Libels Work
Libels endure because they invert victim and aggressor, turning Jewish suffering into supposed Jewish guilt. In the Middle Ages, Jews dying of plague were accused of spreading it. Today, Israelis attacked by Hamas are accused of perpetrating genocide.
Libels thrive in times of fear and conflict. They offer simple villains for complex problems, satisfying the need for moral clarity in a chaotic world. They travel fast because repetition is often mistaken for truth. And crucially, they give license: if Jews — or now Israel — are guilty of the most heinous crimes, then hostility, boycott, even violence appear not just justified but virtuous.
A Pattern We Must Name
What makes libels so dangerous is not only their falsity, but their persistence. Once disproven, they do not die — they mutate. The medieval blood libel is alive today in Gaza war propaganda. The conspiracy libels of old live on in claims of Israeli or Jewish control of media, finance, or foreign policy.
This is why we must call them by their name. The charge of genocide against Israel is not simply “criticism of policy.” The accusation of famine is not an honest misunderstanding. They are part of a centuries-old chain of antisemitic libels, recycled for a modern audience.
The Deadly Consequences of the Lie
History shows that libels do not remain words – they become weapons. The medieval blood libel led to massacres of entire Jewish communities. The “well-poisoning” libel triggered pogroms across Europe. In the twentieth century, Nazi propagandists perfected the technique with the “Big Lie” – the principle that if a falsehood is colossal and repeated often enough, it will be believed.
Hitler wrote of it in Mein Kampf, and Goebbels implemented it with terrifying success: Jews were branded as the source of Germany’s ills, accused of both capitalist exploitation and communist subversion. This systematic campaign of dehumanisation prepared ordinary citizens to accept, even participate in, genocide.
Today, the same psychological mechanism fuels modern antisemitic libels. The more monstrous the claim – that Israel commits genocide, that Israel is starving Gaza, that Zionism is racism – the more some people find it plausible. The “Big Lie” has merely changed its target: from the Jew to the Jewish State.
The Antidote: Truth and Clarity
The libel has always sought to dehumanise Jews, whether as individuals or as a nation. Its modern incarnations are no different. To meet them requires vigilance, clarity, and the willingness to expose the structure of the lie itself.
Israel does not commit genocide; it is defending its citizens against a genocidal enemy. Israel does not starve Gaza; it facilitates aid while Hamas hoards and exploits it. Israel is not a colonial implant; it is the historic homeland of the Jewish people, restored in the modern era.
The cycle of libel will not stop on its own. But it can be confronted — by naming it, exposing it, and refusing to let the lie stand unchallenged.
Why This Matters in New Zealand
New Zealand is not immune to these imported libels. In recent months, claims of genocide, apartheid, and starvation have appeared in our media, on university campuses, and even in political debates. These accusations are not harmless slogans; they are modern libels that borrow directly from centuries-old antisemitic traditions. Left unchallenged, they shape public opinion, distort foreign policy, and embolden hostility towards Jewish New Zealanders.
Recognising them for what they are (weaponised falsehoods) matters not only for Israel’s reputation abroad but for the health of New Zealand’s own public discourse. Truth must not be sacrificed to propaganda, nor should our society allow ancient hatreds to repackage themselves as fashionable activism. To reject libels against Israel is to stand against antisemitism itself.
