On Dealing with Israelphobes and the anti-Jewish Brigade

How might we respond to these folks?

A short answer to what my title deals with is this: In far too many cases you simply can NOT deal with those who hate the Jews and who hate Israel. They are so far entrenched in their antisemitism that they really are beyond reasoning with. They have made up their minds that the Jews are some secret and sinister force in the world, and nothing you say, and no evidence you present to the contrary, will convince them otherwise.

So those sorts of folks are beyond the pale in terms of seeking to have a rational and logical debate with. It is not even worth trying to do so. That is one thing I have clearly learned over the years. As the Christian writer Robert Spencer said in his important new book on antisemitism:

Hatred of Jews is a persistent and recurring social contagion that is now cresting again, after people of goodwill around the world thought that it had been definitely laid to rest in the ashes of National Socialist Germany in 1945. Against social contagions, rational argumentation is only of limited value. In this book, I have tried to show the fundamental irrationality and wrong headedness of some of the principal charges against Jews, but I’m well aware that attempting to argue rationally against those who insist that people are acting clandestinely on the basis of secret teachings is an unwinnable proposition. There is a sucker born every minute, said P. T. Barnum, and he could have said the same thing about antisemites and their theories. Since I began writing this book, new antisemitic conspiracy theories have been born, and some people will always be willing or even happy to be convinced. https://billmuehlenberg.com/2025/06/17/israel-the-jews-and-antisemitism/

But for others who have sipped much of the anti-Israel and anti-Jew narrative, hopefully some are still open to some discussion and some alternative points of view. The trick is to discern if they are or are not those that we should spend time with.

Sadly, on the social media you will find countless individuals, groups and sites devoted to hating on Israel and spreading all sorts of mistruths, falsehoods and inaccuracies. They are all over the place. My main concern is not the obvious candidates – those on the secular left – but those who claim to be conservatives and Christians who have also headed down this dark rabbit hole.

What follows springs from a response I was going to give to one such person and those like him. But what I say below demonstrates why even trying to post a comment on a social media post can often not be the best way to proceed. So here is an extended version of what I was going to say to that individual and others.

-I have so often said that complex and difficult issues are NOT properly dealt with in tiny social media comment boxes. In so many instances all that does is result in more heat than light. Proper debate and discussion is seldom to be found in the far-from useful social media.

That is why I have a website with 7000 articles comprising some 12 million words. And I happen to know a bit about things like Israel, Islam, terrorism, war, peace, geopolitics, international relations, and so on. I have many hundreds of articles on these topics, and a PhD that I once started dealt with much of this as well. If people were really interested in getting an alternative view than what is being heard in so many places, they could check out some of my writings. But will they?

-Related to this is having to deal with the ‘machinegun’ fallacy. That is, your critics – be they angry atheists, radical pro-aborts, homosexual activists, or fanatical antisemites – will string together a number of objections and criticisms. They might throw ten of these one-sentence claims to you, and expect you to answer them all fully and decisively – in a short comment!.

Of course with most deep and complex issues, a half page worth of answers for each objection would be needed to do them proper justice. But again, that is why I at least write long articles and even entire books, to carefully and thoroughly make my case.

I am not going to post a 6-page reply to some machine-gunner to try to please them. Sorry Jack, it ain’t gonna happen. If they really are asking honest questions, and not just rhetorical questions, the info is out there. But most of them refuse to listen to any other point of view. In which case these trolls really are not worth wasting time on.

-Regrettably there is too much that is being said about Israel and the Jews that is just not worth taking seriously. There are so many illogical and unreasonable claims being made. There are so many red herrings, straw men “arguments” and other logical fallacies being raised. There are so many outright lies.

And the outright lies and porkies just keep coming, regardless of whether pushed by “Christian” or non-Christian critics. And there are just so many of their brainless objections and falsehoods, that it does indeed take whole books to deal with them all. Let me deal with just a few.

A full-tilt Israel hater went back and forth with me for a while. Eventually it became clear he was simply a troll who had zero interest in truth. For example, he asked me this when I said Israel is the one peace-seeking nation in the region: ‘If Israel is so peaceful then why is their defence spending 25 per cent?’

Good grief. In the first place it is only 8.8 per cent! And if this guy and his family was completely surrounded by hateful and belligerent neighbours who have sworn to wipe them out, and there were no police around, then he very likely would spend that much to defend himself and his loved ones! All normal folks would. So why can’t Israel which is fully surrounded by those who have sworn to annihilate it?

Another quick example: A guy commented on my post, saying we should not have another war: “Let’s not get involved, for the sake of our children.” Another silly remark. For the sake of our children and everyone else in the world, we dare not naively allow the tyrannical theocrats in Tehran to get nuclear weapons – they have sworn to use them. Recall that Iran says with equal fervor and determination: “Death to Israel” and “Death to America.” Israel will be the first to be annihilated, then the rest of us.

Consider another. One person actually asked me (in her lengthy and disjointed anti-Netanyahu diatribe) if I would prefer to see him become a Christian. Um, duh! Guess what? Yes, of course I would like to see the leader of Israel become a Christian. And the leader of Iran. And the leader of North Korea. And the leader of Australia, and so on.

But it is exactly because I am a biblical Christian that I know perfectly well that not everyone will be saved. As such I am a realist, not some wild-eyed utopian, as I used to be in my radical Marxist days. I readily go along with what Luther is reported to have said: “I’d rather be ruled by a wise Turk than by a foolish Christian.” I will take the rulers of Israel any day over the terrorist killers who rule many Middle Eastern nations. And I will continue to pray for them.

And then there are those who push one of many reckless moral equivalence “arguments”. For example, when I discuss how Iran has been pouring missiles into Israel for years now, and having a nuclear weapon lobbed at them would be devastating for not just Israel but the entire middle East, I will get some who say, ‘Yeah, but how many nukes does Israel have?’

The answer to that in part depends on whether it is a rhetorical question or not. Israel may well have them, but the issue that really matters is this: If you lived, say, in the US and had one next-door neighbour who was a peaceful, God-loving patriot who owned a firearm, and another neighbour who was a notorious gangster, killer and drug-runner who also has firearms, and has routinely threatened you and your family, which one would you most trust and be comfortable living next to?

-Another thing I have to keep saying is this: If and when I start seeing folks show a fraction of the amount of passion and care for Israel as they do to those who have declared their intent to wipe Jews and Christians off the map, then I might start to take them a bit more seriously.

But it seems to be all one-way traffic with these Israelphobes. They forever drone on and on about Israel and the Jews and how evil they supposedly are, but I never hear them say a word about the genuinely evil and demonic Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, political Islam and jihadism. In their books there is only one source of evil and darkness in the world, and it is all found in Israel.

-This is a contradiction in terms: “Christian antisemites”. But sadly they exist – far too many of them. They may be overt and blatant Jew-haters, or they may use various sophistries (even at times SOME theological ones) to cover up their contempt of Israel and all things Jewish. One can certainly debate the relationship between the church and Israel, but it can at times cover a multitude of sins – it can cover latent antisemitism. We all need to look carefully at what we say and why. Even nice-sounding Christian commentary can be a means to push antisemitic views at times.

-All important commentators on the curse of ugly antisemitism have noted how it has ramped up so very markedly since October 7. I am finding them all over the place on the social media of late. That is not surprising. What is surprising and appalling is how many folks claiming to be conservatives and Christians are running with all this. It makes me sick in the stomach to witness all the hatred, contempt and venom they pump out on Israel and the Jews.

Related to this, there are of course various semitic peoples. But the Israel-haters pretend antisemitism refers to all of them. We can call their bluff. The term has always referred to anti-Jewish sentiment – ever since it was first coined back in 1879.

-Where are all those ‘free Palestine’ folks when it comes to the poor suffering citizens of Iran who are treated so appallingly by the theocrats, Islamists and ayatollahs? All they care about is dumping on Israel. They only want to demonise and delegitimise Israel. Their double standards are as shocking as they are obvious.

-Most importantly, while many of these folks keep trying to take the high moral ground, proclaiming how very Christian they are, it is good to be reminded that two of the crucial Christian virtues are humility and a teachable spirit. Some of the most arrogant folks I have encountered are found in the ‘I hate Israel’ camp. Until they understand that God means what he says (eg., “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble”), we will not get very far with trying to reason with them.

Thus it does not pay to spend too much time with those who think they know everything, and who just dismiss those who dare to differ as succumbing to propaganda and the like. That has always been the hallmark of how the secular left “argues,” and it is so sad to see those claiming to be Christians doing the same.

They need to get on their knees before God and do a reality check. And the truth is, I am regularly praying for these folks. Since so many seem to have their minds made up, and just lash out at you if you try to say anything different, sometimes all you can do is keep praying for them and hope that God breaks through. And that I shall do.

-Oh, and one last pointer. For many of these who are clearly trolls and Jew-haters who just want to argue, ignoring them is often the best way to go. Do not give them any oxygen. They just thrive on arguing with you and wasting your time. So don’t fall for it.

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