This article was updated Dec. 12, 2025
Today, there is anti-Zionism, anti-Netanyahu, and anti-Semitism all being mixed in a flurry of rhetoric, hysteria, and panic that most major Jewish groups cannot, or don’t want to, untangle. Worse, they are unprepared to acknowledge the real sources of anti-semitism.
The causes of anti-Semitism predate the birth of Jesus, and have been persistent for over 2,000 years. Almost every country in Western and Eastern Europe, and in the Arab Peninsula, has orchestrated pogroms for thousands of years.
The standard reasons for this have been that Jews are outsiders, control wealth and the means of production, including the media, banking, governments, and cause plagues, and have the political clout to lose wars.
Hitler called the Lenin-Trotsky Soviet Union “Judeo Communism,” and this trope lived until the McCarthy era and the treason trial of the Rosenbergs, who were accused of giving atomic secrets to the Russians.
But today, there are a few new causes of anti-Semitism that do not fit into the standard reasons national Jewish groups use when they raise the anti-Semitism issue to the national level.
Even the New York Times, which is reluctant to report on Jewish issues, had an article today that noted the Nazi influence on MAGA Republicans. This is something this site has addressed for years.
The problem is that major Jewish groups, like the Republican Jewish Coalition, the Adelsons, and AIPAC, have funded MAGA candidates and Trump, because they either want to push a one-state Israel policy or push for tax breaks for their wealthy donors. Both groups are divisive, and they are the biggest threats to the cohesion of the US Jewish community because they take the false position that Trump is good for America and good for Israel. The majority of American Jews disagree. These same groups have also funded anti-Semitic groups via their party donations.
The RJC has also made public apologies for the attack on the US Capitol and the remarks of Marjorie Taylor-Greene about Jews. The RJC also ignores that much of Trump’s support for Israel is done for the benefit of Evangelical Christians, not Jews.
In an article in the Tablet by Shaul Magid, that move was done to appease the Evangelicals, not Adelson, his Israel nationalist supporters, or the Israeli government.
“It is no accident that evangelical John Hagee gave the invocation at the U.S. Embassy’s move to Jerusalem. As Trump said afterward, ‘I did this for the evangelicals.’ On one (Zionist) Christian reading, the Jews may think they are exercising their right of self-determination. Still, they are really pawns, paving the way for the return of Christ (including the predicted end-time destruction of those Jews who refuse to accept Christ).
“But (Jewish) Zionists don’t care, because for them it is the Christians who are the pawns in the story of their own heroic redemption. Each is conspiratorial in its own way. And they can do business together,” according to the Tablet article.
At another event, Evangelicals called Trump “the King of the Jews,” which should have alarmed most of Trump’s right-wing Jewish supporters. But apparently, it had no impact on their blind support of Trump.
Trump is a bona fide mental case and criminal. For some reason, Trump backs Netanyahu and his party’s support of thug settlers, as the Trump regime exercises its corruption in plain sight. Jewish Republicans support Trump’s corruption and Netanyahu’s war policies, while American Jews, who are about 80% Democrats, oppose both. In response, Republican Jews said the Democrats have deceived their Jewish Democrat co-religionists since the end of World War I, when Jews started to become Democrats.
Anti-Zionism, Anti-Netanyahu, Anti-Semitism
To make the situation more complicated, today there is anti-Zionism, anti-Netanyahu, and anti-Semitism all being mixed in a flurry of rhetoric, hysteria, and panic that most major Jewish groups cannot, or don’t want to, untangle. For example, in Israel and among many American Jews, there is a strong anti-Netanyahu sentiment. Among Arabs and their sympathizers who call for a Palestinian state, there is anti-Zionism and anti-Netanyahu sentiment. And among the hard-core, there is the old anti-Semitism.
This situation is very complicated, but the national Jewish groups–B’Nai Brith, ADL, AISH–that fight anti-Semitism have not adapted their strategy and messages for this new reality. Instead, they keep using the umbrella “Anti-Semitism” message since it has raised hundreds of millions for their respective groups. But this is a losing strategy in 2025.
So what do we have today in the American Jewish community? Traditional Jewish groups conduct big educational campaigns and data gathering about anti-Semitic attacks, while simultaneously, Republican Jews help finance MAGA candidates and the MAGA party that foments the attacks. This is like an arsonist who starts fires and then helps the fire department extinguish the same fire. It’s insane, but this is what is happening today.
It’s dangerous and wastes hundreds of millions of dollars.
However, all three–anti-Zionism, anti-Netanyahu, and anti-Semitism–are very different, so it is crucial to separate these themes.
Israel’s War Conduct
First, the recent spike in anti-Semitism stems from Israel’s invasion of Gaza and the West Bank in October 2022 and the resulting destruction of Gaza. Videos of the smashed concrete building, leveled homes, and uprooted olive trees have the same impact on American audiences who saw the Vietnam War carnage on national TV. In the 1960s and 1970s, those TV images prompted a huge anti-war sentiment that eventually drove President Johnson and the military from office.
Those same forces are valid today in fermenting anti-Israel sentiment. This is anti-Israel sentiment, which is not the same as anti-Semitism. Still, the major Jewish groups—ADL, B’nai B’rith, AIPAC, the Republican Jewish Coalition, AISH, many rabbis, the Jewish media–do not make this critical distinction.
This version of anti-Semitism is anti-Israel, and it manifests itself when pro-Arab demonstrations confront pro-Israel supporters who are mostly Jewish. It is not that they object to the Jews in front of them, but to Israel’s war policies that are being directed from thousands of miles away.
Jews Behaving Badly
Second, another cause of anti-Semitism is the sad fact that many Jews are in the news for illegal, unethical actions that have attracted international attention. This includes the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking scandal and the role of other Jews in the Trump
administration who are lightning rods for being hated. This includes Steven Miller and some of the Jewish podcasters who are avid Trump supporters, such as Ben Shapiro, Mark Levin, and Laura Loomer. Basically, Jewish supporters of the MAGA Trump movement work as propagandists for the MAGA movement, and aside from their blind support of Israel’s one-state solution and defense of the gangster settlers who terrorize Arab farmers in the West Bank, they don’t reflect any Jewish values.
Then, there is the growing awareness that the AI revolution, which is controversial and considered part of the new techno-fascism movement, is being run by AI firms that are owned/managed by Jewish technologists.
This includes Facebook (Mark Zuckerberg), Google (Sergey Brin and Larry Page), Palantir (Alex Karp), Oracle (Safra Katz, Gal Tirosh, Larry Ellison), crypto (David Sacks), Shift4Payments (Jared Isaacman), and OpenAI (Sam Altman).
Israel also plays a significant role in the AI revolution, and its aims remain unclear. Its main public and controversial applications (Pegasus) have been on systems used for hacking, eavesdropping, and surveillance in anti-terrorism activities. In some cases, this software has been used to spy on civilian groups that oppose anti-democratic governments.
The fact that Jews own these firms, which have huge political and economic influence, and are closely tied to the Trump regime through large donations, could be considered another source of anti-Semtism.
The Mossad Connection?
Third, the Mossad connection. Jewish groups avoid this topic since it often leads to nothing good. The British newspaper magnate, Robert Maxwell, the father of Ghiselle Maxwell (Epstein’s partner and girlfriend), was linked to the Mossad. His mysterious death only added to the intrigue. Now, stories about the Mossad’s link to Epstein, while unproven to date, could be the most significant contributor to a new source of anti-Israel sentiment, as opposed to anti-Semitic feelings directed towards Jews as a group. If this connection between Mossad and Epstein is verified, it will open a whole new chapter in anti-Israel sentiment.
Fanning the Flames of Hysteria
The hysterical response to the election of Zohran Mamdani as mayor of New York has been unfounded. Nothing in New York has changed, and it will be months before we see how any of Mamdani’s policies develop, let alone how those policies affect the Jewish community. This election has captivated the attention of the major Jewish organizations, but they have not addressed the sources of anti-Semitism listed above.
Instead, they have focused on the usual anti-Muslim, ad hominem attacks on Mamdani as one who opposes Israel, promotes the Palestinian national cause, and is anti-Netanyahu. These are the standard attack themes, but many Israelis oppose Netanyahu and disapprove of his conduct of the war in Gaza and the West Bank. If an election were held tomorrow, Netanyahu would be voted out of office.
Major Jewish groups that fundraise based on anti-Semitism should create a new category of anti-Semitism that is first, linked to Israeli policies, and second, the criminal, disgraceful, abhorrent behavior of American Jews.
The disgraceful behavior of Jews in a community is not new. The Shanda stigma enforces Jewish community standards and breeds cohesion among those who want to be part of a community that performs good deeds and brings people together.
The Shanda list includes Jews who are divisive, criminal, predatory, and are an embarrassment. Yes, these people exist. They are also a source of anti-Semitism that is less visible than the Proud Boys, social media sensationalists, and Christian nationalists. It’s time for Jewish groups to expand their search for the causes of anti-Semitism.
Maybe they should adopt the old saying from the cartoon character Snoopy: “We have met the enemy, and it is us.”
