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\nThe more depraved Israel\u2019s actions, the more antisemitic it is to point out the truth. The painful reality is that, through Israel, the West can dress up boilerplate colonialism as a ‘Jewish’ project<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n There\u2019s a dangerous paradox that helps to dissuade people, especially public figures, from speaking up even as Israel\u2019s genocide in Gaza grows more horrifying by the day. Let us call it the \u201cblood libel\u201d paradox.<\/p>\n It works like this. In Medieval times, Jews were accused of murdering non-Jews, particularly children, to use their blood in the performance of religious rituals. Every time a Jew is accused of murdering a non-Jew, so the thinking goes, this endangers Jews by fuelling the very kind of antisemitism that ultimately led to the gas chambers of Auschwitz.<\/p>\n Responsible people, or at least those with a reputation to protect, therefore avoid making any statements that might contribute to the impression that Jews \u2013 or in this case, the soldiers of the Jewish state of Israel \u2013 are killing non-Jews.<\/p>\n If such criticisms are made, they must be carefully couched by western politicians, the media and public figures in language that makes the killing of non-Jews \u2013 in this case, Muslim and Christian Palestinians \u2013 appear reasonable.<\/p>\n Israel is simply \u201cdefending itself\u201d in killing and maiming 100,000s of civilians in Gaza after Hamas\u2019 one-day attack on 7 October 2023.<\/p>\n The enclave\u2019s masses of dead innocents are just the unfortunate price paid to secure the \u201creturn of Israeli hostages\u201d held by Hamas.<\/p>\n Israel\u2019s active, months-long starvation of Gaza\u2019s children is a \u201chumanitarian crisis\u201d, not a crime against humanity.<\/p>\n Anyone who dissents from this narrative is denounced as an antisemite, whether they be millions of ordinary people<\/a>; every respected human rights organisation<\/a> in the world, including the Israeli group B\u2019Tselem<\/a>; the World Health Organisation<\/a>; the International Criminal Court<\/a>; genocide scholars like Omer Bartov<\/a>, himself an Israeli; and so on.<\/p>\n It is the perfect, self-reinforcing loop, one entirely divorced from the reality being live-streamed to us daily.<\/p>\n The outrageous consequences of the \u201cblood libel\u201d paradox were highlighted a year into Israel\u2019s genocide in Gaza by the Jewish writer Howard Jacobson.<\/p>\nAid death traps<\/strong><\/h3>\n