1/🧵 Anna Shnaidman nails it: antizionist libel isn’t about recognizing suffering—it’s about assigning malevolence. She writes: > “The leap—from tragedy to malevolence—is the mark of libel.” That’s the core of modern antizionist ideology.
2/ The pattern is familiar: people cite war’s horrors—starving kids, broken homes—and then insist Israel intended it. Not error. Not tragedy. But cruelty as policy. Ancient malice fulfilled. That’s the libel.
3/ Take the genocide libel: Born from Cold War propaganda post-1967. Soviet and Arab sources accused Israel of genocidal intent. It entered Western discourse in 2021, surged in 2024 and persists in 2025, even cited by Israeli NGOs. But there’s still no legal or demographic basis.
4/ Then the settler-colonizer libel: After 1967, PLO publications compared Israel to South African Bantustans. Academic books like Ilan Pappé’s Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine codified it in the West. But this isn’t real history—it’s Cold War projection.
5/ The apartheid libel? 1961: South Africa’s PM Verwoerd slandered Israel at the UN. 1975: “Zionism is racism” from the UN. 2001: Durban Conference fueled the fire. But Israeli Arabs vote, have citizenship, and hold office. Still, the lie lives on.
6/ Newest is the famine libel: December 2023: Warnings. January 2024: Claims of IPC Phase 5. May 2024: ICC charges. July: UN calls it “genocidal starvation.” But—no famine confirmed. No data. No evidence. Just accusations.
7/ Every libel follows the same arc: Real suffering → claims of intent → assumption of evil → global outrage. What’s missing? Proof. Proportion. Honest debate. Instead: Intent is presumed. Israel is guilty because it exists.
8/ Shnaidman’s insight is a lifeline. We must critique policy. We must care about suffering. But we must not leap from tragedy to blood libel. That leap—that lie—has a history. And it ends in disaster.
9/ Antizionist libels didn’t come from justice. They came from Soviet playbooks, anti-Jewish tropes, and misuse of humanitarian language. Resist the leap. Resist the libel. See clearly.
10/ 🧵End Full piece: https://annashnaidman.substack...
@thewebbie Her text is brillant, if nervewrecking.
We shouldn't have to thank people for having moral clarity. But here we are... because it's become rare enough to feel like a miracle when we find it.