Israel’s Antisemitism Narrative Lost Its Magic in the Gaza War

The Holocaust, Al-Aqsa Flood, and the Anti-Semitism Narrative: How Israel’s Moral Magic Lost Its Grip

In a world undergoing rapid political and social transformations, issues once considered taboo, sacred, or untouchable are now open to discussion and change, driven by growing global public awareness. Among these issues, Israel exemplifies a reality requiring the re-evaluation of long-standing global positions historically aligned with its political narratives regarding Arabs and Palestinians.

These narratives often labeled them as anti-Semitic and hostile toward Jews who perished in the Nazi Holocaust. Contemporary attitudes toward Israel have shifted, particularly in response to its ongoing strategy of denying the rights of the Palestinian people.

Likewise, the destruction of Gaza in both human and infrastructural terms—most notably following the Al-Aqsa Flood operation—has exposed Israel’s systematic aggression. This study traces the sources of the “magic” Israel exercised through political and media discourse to shape global opinion regarding the Palestinian cause and analyzes the changes in state policies, intellectual thought, and public perception that have led to a shift in attitudes toward its magic.

The Holocaust: A Foundational Lever and a Tool for Zionist Colonization in the Region

From the moment the State of Israel was established by Western powers on the ruins of the Palestinian Nakba in 1948, its legitimacy was justified by the long-standing Zionist claim to Palestine, originating in the late nineteenth century: “A land without a people for a people without a land.” Herzl wrote in February 1896: “The Jews are a nation without a homeland, and their issue can only be resolved through a homeland that unites them, and this homeland must be in the Promised Land of God… Our appointment must be in Palestine, the land that the Lord has given us.”

This narrative successfully persuaded much of the world, despite being a colonial fabrication that concealed a comprehensive displacement project, disguised as a civilizing mission in the Arab region.

The Palestinian Nakba embodied the human cost of this exploitation. Jews were portrayed as perpetual victims deserving a “safe homeland,” while Palestinians were denied recognition as human beings with political and historical rights to their ancestral land. Consequently, Israel was able to monopolize the narrative of victimhood, backed by widespread Western support, turning any criticism into an accusation of “antiSemitism.”

Israel reinforced its foundational narrative by positioning itself as the ultimate refuge for world Jewry after the Nazi Holocaust, using this tragedy as a cornerstone of its political and ideological project, as well as its regional and international relations. The focus extended beyond merely documenting atrocities against Jews in Europe. Collective memory—both among Jews and the broader global public—was shaped by institutions, commemorations, educational systems, and media frameworks that presented the Holocaust as a unique tragedy, incomparable to other massacres, and one that should not be assessed by the ethical or political standards applied elsewhere.

Thus, Israel extensively exploited the Nazi Holocaust, portraying itself as an absolute victim entitled to special rewards and international support, rather than being treated as an ordinary state. In this context, the Holocaust was also used to justify Israeli violence against Palestinians and Arabs. Any perceived threat to its security, or resistance to its settlements and discriminatory policies, was framed as a continuation of antiSemitism and a resurgence of Nazism.

As a result, Israel was depicted not as a modern colonial power, but as a perpetual victim within a hostile Arab-Islamic environment. This strategy enabled Israel to secure decades of unconditional Western support and evade accountability for international resolutions and alleged war crimes. European countries burdened by their Nazi past, such as Germany, or complicit in the creation of Israel, like Britain and the United States, viewed support for the Zionist project as a form of atonement for past political and moral failings, and as a justification for their strategic alliance with Israel.

The West had also portrayed Israel as a threatened democratic oasis in a hostile Arab region, allegedly under constant threat of repeating Hitler’s atrocities against Jews. Consequently, Israel gained a near-permanent shield of protection from the West, at the expense of the Palestinian people, who were denied a recognized state reflecting their national aspirations.

Aggressive Duality: Land and “Peace” by Force

Following the establishment of the State of Israel, the world was largely compelled to accept its narrative exclusively, and anyone offering an alternative account of its policies toward the Palestinian people or their historical claims to the land was labeled anti-Semitic. In 1948, Israel disregarded the United Nations–approved partition borders from the previous year; instead, it expanded its territory, carried out numerous massacres, and displaced over 700,000 Palestinians.

Arab states, meanwhile, committed strategic errors, often issuing grandiose declarations—such as promising to eliminate Israel in 1948—which they genuinely believed. Many leaders exploited the Palestinian cause to consolidate domestic power and enhance their public image. Between 1956 and 1982, Israel engaged in several major wars against Arab states— Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon—often justified by claims that these states sought to “throw Israel into the sea,” as Ahmed Saeed broadcast on Voice of the Arabs radio in 1967.

Israel participated in the Suez War alongside Britain and France, occupying the Sinai Peninsula up to the Suez Canal, and withdrew only after a direct warning from U.S. President Eisenhower. When Egypt rearmed with support from the Eastern Bloc, Israel launched the 1967 war against Egypt, Syria, and Jordan, seizing additional territory, including East Jerusalem.

The Zionist state then leveraged actions by fedayeen, such as the 1972 Munich incident and the hijacking of El Al planes, to reinforce its narrative as a “victim of Palestinian terrorism,” allegedly preventing its citizens from living in peace and security. These policies, however, revealed Israel’s reluctance to coexist with Arab Palestinians, whether within a single state or two sovereign states.

Israel continued to adhere to a maximalist territorial vision, rooted in certain interpretations of the Torah, extending from the Nile to the Euphrates. Consequently, it functioned as a state without a formal constitution, attracting minimal international scrutiny regarding this anomaly. Israel’s wars against Arab states failed to alter the fundamental balance. It continued to profess commitment to peace while simultaneously militarizing extensively to pursue territorial expansion.

It uniquely conducted repeated military operations without facing accountability or enforcement of Security Council resolutions, shielded by the U.S. veto, which effectively protected it from legal or compensatory obligations to affected populations.

Israel remains the only state in the region openly permitted to possess nuclear weapons, while Iran has faced sustained international pressure to dismantle its nuclear program to prevent any perceived threat to Israel—a pressure reinforced this year by direct Israeli and American strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.

Tel Aviv has maintained a dual strategy: rhetorical negotiation on the one hand, and aggressive territorial predation on the other. From Camp David to Oslo to the Deal of the Century, it has shown no genuine commitment to a two-state solution or recognition of Palestinian rights.

Instead, it reinforced its occupation, Judaized Jerusalem, expanded settlements incrementally in the West Bank, and imposed a suffocating siege on the Gaza Strip. Since the establishment of the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1964 and the subsequent rise of Palestinian armed struggle, Israel has intensified its propaganda, leveraging its extensive media networks and Western lobbies to justify the use of force against Arabs and Palestinians.

This has included targeted assassinations beyond its borders, such as the killing of three Palestinian leaders in Beirut in 1973 and Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai in 2010. On 9 September 2025, Israel assassinated members of the Hamas negotiation delegation in Doha, in an effort to undermine regional peace initiatives and halt efforts to resolve the Gaza conflict.

Previously, Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in July 2024, followed by the killing of Hassan Nasrallah and twenty Hezbollah leaders in September 2024. Israel consistently framed Palestinian resistance—including the First Intifada (1987) and the Second Intifada (2000)—as terrorism, portraying itself as a “peace-loving state” under constant threat.

Such a strategy ensured that Israel’s security narrative dominated international discourse, while masking the persistent denial of Palestinian rights and sovereignty. The Israeli government succeeded in portraying the struggle of the Palestinian people and their resistance to liberate their land as acts of extremism and violence.

This framing was first consolidated during the First Intifada in 1987, when mass demonstrations and civil disobedience were depicted in Western media as mere “riots.” The signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993 initially appeared to mark a breakthrough; however, in practice, Israel used the process to rebrand itself as a peace-seeking state while tightening its grip on the occupied territories.

The outcome was a fragmented Palestinian Authority stripped of real sovereignty, with Mahmoud Abbas reduced to the role of a municipal administrator rather than the head of an independent authority.

The assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995 further weakened prospects for peace, paving the way for hardline Israeli forces to dominate the political agenda. With the eruption of the Second Intifada in 2000, Israel fully embraced the discourse of the global “war on terror,” equating Palestinian armed resistance with international terrorism.

This narrative gained further traction after September 11, 2001, providing Israel with unprecedented legitimacy to intensify military campaigns, construct the separation wall, and expand settlements under the pretext of security. By 2017, these discursive strategies had deeply reshaped international perceptions, marginalizing the Palestinian narrative and entrenching Israel’s portrayal of itself as a victimized democracy defending against irrational violence.

Al-Aqsa Flood: The Daily Humiliation of Palestinians and Its Repercussions

The “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation was the inevitable outcome of the daily humiliation and oppression faced by Palestinians at the hands of the Israeli army and extremist Jewish groups monopolizing the Al-Aqsa Mosque, compounded by the failure of the Palestinian people to achieve their national aspirations through the establishment of an independent state.

The operation radically upended the situation: the sudden and precise attack constituted a security and military earthquake for Israel, exposing the fragility of its security apparatus. However, the Israeli response was less a conventional military operation than a retaliatory and strategic campaign: thousands of raids on residential neighborhoods, mass killings of children and women, systematic destruction of Gaza’s infrastructure, and a siege resulting in starvation and displacement—acts that Western statements have identified as amounting to war crimes.

This campaign of revenge concealed a broader strategy devised by Netanyahu’s extremist government to eliminate the Palestinian issue. While the world was still grappling with the immediate impact of the “Flood” and expressing sympathy for Israel, Netanyahu and his government advanced plans to permanently resolve the Palestinian question and reassert control over the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

The Prime Minister effectively used the genocide of Palestinians as a political shield to delay or avoid accountability for his corruption by the Israeli judiciary. Israeli aggression subsequently expanded from the Gaza Strip to the West Bank in an attempt to dismantle the entire structure of Islamic resistance.

Homes were destroyed over the heads of children and residents, while schools, hospitals, and refugee camps became targets. This was carried out under the pretext that “Hamas is hiding among civilians,” including the tents of the displaced—a justification that has lost credibility in the face of images showing children trapped under rubble and daily massacres, including the execution of civilians and their burial under soil using bulldozers.

The result was thousands of martyrs among children, women, the elderly, and the sick, alongside a dangerously inhumane escalation that prevented the delivery of food and medical aid to the Strip. The humiliation of the Palestinian people continued through the imposition of enforced “diaspora” across dozens of corridors within Gaza Strip.

During this period, the Israeli killing machine extended its operations to the West Bank to destroy and wreak havoc, demonstrating that the target was not only Hamas but the liquidation of the entire Palestinian issue and the imposition of a fait accompli by force.

Israel then turned its attention to Lebanon to punish Hezbollah for its support of Gaza, aiming to deliver bloody lessons—both selectively and collectively—using two-thousand-pound American bombs on multiple fronts against anyone who stands with the Palestinian people or condemns its crimes. Simultaneously, it sought to weaken what remained of the Syrian army following the fall of Bashar al-Assad.

Holocaust Perpetrators and the People of Palestine: An Immoral and Inhumane Genocide

As the killing, destruction, and starvation in Gaza are approaching their third year, the consequences for Israel began to manifest in reverse—politically, ethically, and morally. The image of Israel, which claims to be the “only democratic state in the Middle East,” has been transformed into that of an entity engaging in mass killings (with 15 civilians out of 16 killed in the Gaza Strip since March 2025) in full view of the world.

Tel Aviv has lost its monopoly over the narrative, and its claim to moral authority has been shattered. It can no longer suppress or condemn voices of solidarity with Palestine by labeling them as anti-Semitic, because the truth is now undeniable: a state is waging a genocidal war against a besieged and starving civilians.

With the widening gap between Israel’s narrative and the reality on the ground, the Zionist state has entered its most dangerous phase—a loss of moral legitimacy that cannot be offset by its arsenal of deadly weapons or decades of continuous propaganda.

What exacerbates the situation in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank is a profound moral contradiction: a Jewish people who endured genocide in the twentieth century and became a global symbol of human suffering is now, both historically and contemporarily, implementing similar policies of genocide against another people, devoid of ethics or conscience.

The State of Israel, established on the ruins of the Holocaust, has transformed into an occupying power engaging in killing, intimidation, starvation, and forced displacement—actions that are well-documented and align with definitions of genocide under international law, according to reports from numerous human rights, humanitarian, and media organizations, including the United Nations, The International Court of Justice, and The International Criminal Court.

Israel seeks peace with the Arab world according to its aggressive concept without shame, embarrassment, or hesitation, even as it pours Palestinian blood, devastates the Gaza Strip and Gaza City, and pushes the population southward—and potentially into Egypt, according to plans by the Israeli right.

Simultaneously, the Israeli government intends to re-annex the West Bank, where the population of Jewish settlements exceeds 770,000. Amidst the ongoing killing and destruction, anyone who dares to criticize Israel’s actions or hold it accountable for crimes against Palestinians is immediately accused of “hating Israel” or being anti-Semitic, with the intent of tarnishing its reputation.

The Israeli state has extensively employed this tactic in regional and international arenas against anyone who challenges or criticizes its policies. Israel has gone so far as to target hundreds of journalists and reporters to prevent the dissemination of facts to global public opinion.

From Israel’s perspective, the free world must accept its narrative of perpetual insecurity, as if the suffering endured by Jews in Europe grants Israel a permanent license to persecute another people, entirely free from accountability or moral responsibility.

To date, the total number of victims of Israeli actions has exceeded 65,000 Palestinian martyrs and 165,000 wounded, 20,000 of whom are children. Estimates suggest that around 10,000 Palestinians remain dead under rubble. Israel has also employed starvation as a weapon, systematically destroyed hospitals—of which only eight remain in the entire Gaza Strip—burned fields and homes, and demolished water wells and electricity networks.

The deliberate targeting of children aims to eliminate any potential Palestinian resistance that the new generation might mount in the future. According to Israeli narratives, many Hamas and Jihad members were targeted and killed. However, the continuation of daily violent killings at an unrelenting pace and with increasing brutality indicates that the majority of those remaining in the Gaza Strip are civilians.

This also demonstrates that the daily killings constitute a genocidal project aimed at Palestinian civilians—essentially turning Gaza into a “fiery Holocaust” analogous to the one suffered by the Jews.

The Netanyahu government’s stipulation that foreign relief committees be stationed in the southern sector effectively forces residents from the north and center to move south, thereby confining Palestinians in the south in preparation for their uprooting. In other words, the Al-Aqsa Flood operation provided Israel with the pretext to implement a large-scale plan to empty the Gaza Strip of its Palestinian population.

With brazen audacity, Israel demanded the displacement of Palestinians to other Arab and foreign countries, and U.S. President Trump joined in this initiative, proposing the “temporary” relocation of Palestinians under the false promise that they would eventually return—until Gaza is transformed into the so-called “Riviera of the Middle East.”

The same thing is planned for southern Lebanon. Are the Rivera projects in Gaza and Lebanon, and the annexation of the West Bank, the beginning of the establishing of Greater Israel, as Netanyahu has recently predicted?

To date, the Netanyahu government refuses any settlement with Hamas and, following a logic that can be described as politically and diplomatically terrorist, seeks first to recover its citizens and soldiers captured by Hamas and Jihad, and then to return to war—continuing until the last Palestinian in the Gaza Strip is killed, or those who remain are displaced from their land.

This so-called “solution” perpetuates an explosive situation indefinitely and fails to incentivize Hamas to agree to a ceasefire. Once prisoners are handed over to Israel, it resumes its campaign to complete its destructive project.

Conclusion: The Magic Turns Against the Magician: Rejecting the Genocide of Palestinians

The “magic” that Zionism has wielded over the world, leveraging the Holocaust as a moral weapon, has begun to unravel and rebound upon its creators. Israel is no longer able to present itself as a victim, as its barbaric aggression against Palestine has escalated to levels of genocide.

With the widespread dissemination of daily massacre scenes across the Gaza Strip and Gaza City, global sympathy has started to shift from Israel to the Palestinians—even within Western societies, particularly in universities and among cultural and academic elites—reaching parliamentary councils and European governments. Israel has thus lost its monopoly over the narrative, and its claim to moral authority has been shattered.

It is no longer possible to condemn voices of solidarity with Palestine by accusing them of anti-Semitism, because the truth has become undeniable: the nuclear state of Israel is waging a genocidal war against a besieged and oppressed people.

With the widening gap between Israel’s narrative and the reality on the ground, the Israeli state has entered a phase of moral delegitimization—a loss that cannot be offset by its arsenal of weapons or decades of sustained propaganda.

With massive demonstrations by the people of the free world, global awareness, particularly in Europe, began to rise above moral blackmail. International humanitarian and social organization assisting the people of Gaza raised its voice loudly against Israel’s crimes against the Palestinian human being and how he was killed in cold blood in front of the aid distribution centers by the Israeli army.

The developments greatly revealed Israel policies of media suppression, the killing of journalists, the burial of civilians after killing them, and the destruction of civilian tents—which reveal more than they protect—have been exposed to the world, allowing the global community to grasp the reality of what is happening in Palestine.

Israel had sought to keep the entire world silent about its crimes and to prevent even the mention of the word “Palestine.” But the world has broken its silence and can no longer remain deaf and blind to the genocide being carried out in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank under the pretexts of “self-defense” and the “historical injustice” suffered by the Jews.

Today, Europe is changing its stance. It is no longer the “enchanted Europe” but has broken free from the spell of the devilish magician and has awakened, despite the colonial history of some of its countries.

As a demonstration of global solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza, the ‘Global Sumud Flotilla,’ launched on 31 August 2025 from various ports, brings together over 50 vessels and delegations from 44 countries, aiming to break the Gaza blockade and deliver symbolic humanitarian aid. The flotilla faces constant harassment by Israeli patrols in the Mediterranean.

On 21 May, during a visit by a European diplomatic delegation to Jenin and its refugee camp in the West Bank—granted prior Israeli permission—the Israeli army opened fire. This incident did not weaken Europe’s resolve in confronting the Zionist campaign against the Palestinian people. In response, the foreign ministries of European Union countries expressed strong outrage and summoned Israeli ambassadors to lodge formal protests.

Before Israel escalated its campaign of starving the people of Gaza in March 2025, and before it blocked the entry of food, medical, and fuel aid into the Strip, a European Union committee issued an important document in November 2024, accusing Israel of using starvation as a weapon against Gazans and of killing tens of thousands of women and children—actions considered crimes against humanity.

There are clear calls within the European Union to impose economic and trade sanctions on Israel, halt scientific exchanges, and review all agreements concluded with it. Some EU countries started a ban on the export of weapons to Israel. Furthermore, several European and African countries have called for holding Israeli leaders accountable for their crimes, in accordance with the rulings of the International Court of Justice.

However, Europe’s collective and individual positions remain constrained by the United States, limiting its freedom of action and decision-making regarding Israel. Israel responded to Europe by accusing its politicians of “baseness” and antiSemitism. The same dynamics observed in Europe can be generalized to the Arab world, which is the primary stakeholder in the Palestinian cause.

At the United Nations General Assembly’s eightieth anniversary on September 22, 2025, France and Saudi Arabia successfully convened a conference aimed at halting the war in Gaza and advancing serious efforts toward a two-state solution. This was followed by the recognition of the State of Palestine by several European countries, including three of the GP: Canada, the United Kingdom and France.

The European recognition of Palestine was widely regarded as a significant step toward legitimizing Palestinian statehood and enhancing the prospects for a two-state solution. At the same time, however, some analysts cautioned that partial recognition, without a simultaneous resolution of the conflict, might entrench divisions and complicate the peace process.

This shift in world politics has demonstrated that Israel long wielded a kind of “magic” over the world, drawing sympathy and obscuring the truth from eyes and minds. However, that magic has finally lost its historical charm. The magician who deceived the world throughout history now finds his wand ineffective, and what he has concealed under his hat or suit has become visible.

Everyone now sees his actions for what they truly are: a state that, while invoking the Holocaust narrative for its own people, kills others without humanity or ethics. The world that once refused to listen has begun to hear; the world that saw with one eye has now opened both eyes; the world that was paralyzed has risen and started walking on the path of humanity, ethics, and the rights of the Palestinian people, becoming a voice that speaks the truth.

The magic has backfired on the Israeli magician, whose spells no longer work on anyone. The truth has been revealed: Israel is not the victim, but an aggressive state, an executioner, a killer, and a criminal since 1948. It has become a pioneer of “Palestinophobia”—through political, media, and legal practices that generate and justify systematic fear, hatred, and contempt toward Palestinians, stripping them of their humanity, legitimizing their oppression, killings, starvation, and deprivation of basic rights, and framing their quest for freedom as either an existential threat or a form of terrorism.

The perplexing question remains: Will Europe be satisfied with escalating its position to the point it has reached, or will it go further after the New York Declaration and the recognition of the Palestinian state by more than 157 countries? So far, Europe has moved from silence to speech, but this requires a shift to action. Will Europe challenge the United States, which rejects the two-state solution and gives Israel a free hand in the Gaza Strip and West Bank?

Defending the Palestinian people and its national cause is a binding moral obligation, not merely a slogan. As for the United States under Trump, which claims to be the world’s foremost democracy, there is little hope it will join Europe in breaking the Israeli spell cast upon it. Will Trump’s human conscience awaken, or will it remain commercial and bewitched?

A few months ago, President Trump merely contented himself with expelling several Zionist figures from his administration. Yet it is American bombs that Israel is using to kill and burn the women and children of Gaza. “Trump’s America” is not only a supporter of Israel but a partner, granting it free rein to destroy the Palestinian cause. From the podium of the United Nations General Assembly, he rejected the two-state solution and mocked the New York Conference and its supporters.

For the first time in its history, Israel finds itself profoundly divided—at the level of the state, its political class, society, and even the military. This division is not merely over the fate of the Israeli prisoners held by Hamas or the handling of the Palestinian question, but rather stems from the erosion of the “democracy” it once proudly showcased, along with the disintegration of its internal unity—a cornerstone of its societal, existential, political, and strategic cohesion.

If Europe has finally awakened, the two-state solution should constitute the viable framework for Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims to advance the Palestinian cause, even if it entails a demilitarized Palestinian state according to the ‘New York declaration’.

The ill-conceived “Flood operation’ exposed Hamas to significant consequences, disregarding the balance of military power with Israel and the extensive international support Israel receives, particularly from the United States, which allowed Israel to present itself as the aggrieved party. Iran may have been involved in this complex operation through planning and training Hamas cadres as a form of strategic retaliation against Israel. Meanwhile, Israel was positioned to capitalize on any operational or strategic errors by Hamas to advance its objectives against Palestinian political and administrative structures.

Evidence on the ground indicates that Israel leveraged Operation Al-Aqsa Flood to consolidate control over Gaza and undermine the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, resulting in substantial casualties, widespread displacement, and significant infrastructural damage across the Gaza Strip. This sequence demonstrates that Israel exploited the operation to weaken Palestinian governance and territorial presence, further consolidating its strategic advantage in both Gaza and the West Bank.

After World War II, the Nuremberg Tribunal prosecuted Nazi leaders for their crimes; will the international community likewise hold Israeli leaders accountable for crimes against humanity committed against the Palestinian people?

Israel claims to be threatened by its Palestinian enemies. Yet, since the two-state solution proposes an unarmed Palestinian state alongside an Israeli state armed with nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, there remains no legitimate excuse for Israel to refuse the establishment of a Palestinian state. Its rejection effectively perpetuates a one-state reality—Israel—thereby denying the Palestinian people their fundamental rights and revealing more about its project to remove Palestine, its name, state, and people from existence.

(UPDATE: Since this paper was writted a 'ceasefire deal' has led to the release of remaining Israelis held in Gaza and of some 1900 Palestinian prisoners. At the time of writing, however, Israel has breached the ceasefire by bombing Gaza multiple times and restricting the entry of humanitarian aid, and has accused Hamas of 'violations of the ceasefire')

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Abdel-Raouf Sinno is an emeritus cholar at the Lebanese University, Beirut. His researches focus on Lebanese and Arab Politics and thought, as well Historical background of the Arab-Ottoman relations, Germany and the Middle East in 19th and 20th century.

To read more of his work, click here to visit his profile on Academia