I continue to be troubled by Rabbi Jill Jacobs’ recent Washington Post op-ed, “How to tell when criticism of Israel is actually anti-Semitism,” and frankly disappointed to witness how warmly it has been received in progressive Jewish circles. In context and content, I find it to be anything but progressive.

Jacob’s article was written in response to the Israeli military’s killing of over 100 Palestinians in demonstrations in Gaza since March 30, including 14 children, and injured over 3,500 with live fire. Certainly, as the Executive Director of Tru’ah – an American rabbinical organization that seeks to “protect human rights in North America, Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories” – one might have expected her to follow the lead of other human rights organizations and protest (or even call into question) Israel’s excessive use of force.

On the very same day as Jacobs’ op-ed, for instance, Human Rights Watch called for an international inquiry “into this latest bloodshed,” adding that “these staggering casualty levels (were) neither the result of justifiable force nor of isolated abuses; but foreseeable results of senior Israeli officials’ orders on the use of force.” For its part, Amnesty International called Israel’s actions “an abhorrent violation of international law” and Doctors Without Borders termed them “unacceptable and inhuman.”

Tru’ah itself released a statement about the violence four days earlier, but notably refrained from any criticism of Israel’s behavior. In fact, the statement neglected to even mention the fact that the Israeli military had shot and killed scores of protesters, noting only that Tru’ah was “deeply saddened by the deaths.” It went on to quote a Talmudic commentary in which a commander of King Saul’s forces was criticized for killing a man when he could have easily “hit him in one of his limbs.” (This citation was particularly egregious considering the widespread reports of many Gazans – including children – whose limbs were amputated after being maimed by Israeli gunfire.)

In her op-ed, Jacobs likewise avoided any judgement of Israel’s mass killings, choosing instead to discuss the “rhetorical battle” between Israel advocates and pro-Palestinians activists, analyzing in detail when antisemitism “masquerades as criticism of Israel.” I’m not sure that Jacobs has added anything new to this particular conversation, which has been explored extensively over the past several decades. I personally disagree strongly with several of her specific points and perhaps in a future post I’ll discuss them in greater detail. For now, however, I’m far more troubled that given the outrages of the past few months, the leader of a rabbinical organization committed to human rights is more concerned about the rhetoric of Israel-criticism than Israel’s choice to kill and maim scores of nonviolent protesters with live gunfire.

Indeed, while Jacobs dedicated an entire section of her analysis to “Dismissing the humanity of Israelis,” nowhere did she stop to consider the humanity of the Palestinian people, except to ask when their rhetoric might be considered antisemitic. She made a particular point of singling out Palestinian academic/activist Steven Salaita by name as an antisemite with the flimsiest of evidence – knowing full well the damaging stigma of such an epithet. (I strongly commend Salaita’s eloquent response to Jacobs, in which he addresses her destructive “tone-policing of Palestinians” in the face of their “exclusion and privation.”)

In truth, it has been difficult to avoid the abject dehumanization of Gazans by the Israeli government and Israel advocates these past few months. In statement after statement, Palestinians have all but been blamed for their own mass murder. During the course of these massacres, my Palestinian friends in Gaza have asked me repeatedly: What will it take? What will it take for the world to see us as real, living breathing human beings rather than either incorrigible terrorists or unthinking puppets of Hamas? My friend and colleague Jehad Abusalim, a Gazan who currently works in the Chicago office of the AFSC wrote powerfully about this phenomenon in a recent article for Vox:

The idea of the march has been part of the political discussion in Gaza for years, and I witnessed it evolve. Contrary to Israeli propaganda, which claims that the march is staged by Hamas, participation in the march transcended factional and ideological affinities.

The march was a product of Palestinian civil society efforts. In fact, grassroots organizers, young intellectuals, and activists struggled to renew Gaza’s confidence in peaceful and nonviolent mass mobilization as a tactic that would end their dehumanization by Israel.

Yet despite all these efforts, official Israel and US messaging focuses on few violent manifestations in the march — which amounted to a small group throwing burning tires, Molotov cocktails, and stones, according to the Israeli military — and try to cast the incongruous words of a few marchers as nothing but Hamas propaganda. Such an approach not only dehumanizes Palestinians, it also assumes that they are nothing but mindless pawns of Hamas with no agency over their destiny and lives.

While this victim-blaming may be excruciating however, at least it is consistent. In some ways, articles such as Jacobs are even more troubling: they passively validate this dehumanization by leaving it unchallenged while purporting to occupy a “progressive higher ground.” It’s not uncommon for liberal Zionists to fortify their moral position by stating they are equally criticized by the left and the right. But in the end, this studious avoidance to name oppression out loud only strengthens the “moral claims” of the oppressor.

I’ve long been frustrated at my liberal Zionist colleagues who are more than willing to condemn any number of human rights abuses around the world, yet refuse to apply the same standard when it comes to Israel. It does not befit an organization that purports to uphold human rights to “mourn the deaths” rather than “condemn the killing.” And it is deeply disappointing when the director of that organization responds only by criticizing the rhetoric of those who are justifiably outraged by Israel’s inhumane actions.