The condemnations of killing children are not accusations of “Blood Libel”!

Accusations of anti-semitism continue to be weaponised as the Zionist regime loses the unconditional support of its backers. This mustn't prevent people speaking out!

AntiZionism or AntiSemitism?

AntiZionism is not AntiSemitism. This needs repeating over and over, in particular as accusations of anti semitism continue to be weaponised as the Zionist occupation loses the unconditional support of its backers. I have written about the difference between AntiZionism and AntiSemitism in the past. But the issue needs addressing again.

The latest high profile example was Netanyahu’s accusations against allies and backers who criticised his latest phase of attack in Gaza and decision to block humanitarian aid. I have argued that any perceived ‘division’ between Netanyahu and his allies is the difference between those who care about the long term survival of the occupation - and those who care about the survival of his government. It is not a significant loss of support for the occupation as a whole.

Recently the Jewish Telegraph Agency raised an unusually nuanced question reflecting the different opinions amongst Jews in the USA after the killing of two embassy staff in Washington: Was it an antisemitic murder, targeting them for their Jewish race/religion, fuelled they said by “the often violent rhetoric of the pro-Palestinian movement has endangered Jews no matter where they live”? Or was it, they asked, “a political killing, a spillover from the war in Gaza, which has inspired violent attacks not only on Jews but on Palestinian Americans and the three Palestinian students who were shot in Vermont in November 2023?”

It would be hard to find any genuinely ‘violent rhetoric’ in the pro-Palestinian protests in the UK that would cause any incitement against Jewish people in general. There have been many Jewish people who participate in those protests.

However, there is a consistent attempt to deflect criticism of the occupation with accusations of antisemitism.

Weaponising Antisemitism in defence of the child death toll.

The most egregious example which is being consistently parroted by mouthpieces for the genocide is in relation to the deaths of children, where concerns expressed have been compared to accusations of terrible antisemitic “Blood Libel” accusations from the past.

“Blood Libel” is the term used for the antisemitic false allegation against Jews in Europe that they used the blood of non-Jewish children for ritual purposes. It was raised in medieval times and also used by the Nazis and others in more recent times.

This ‘defence’ has been used by the former spokesmen for the Zionist occupation against South Africa’s case at the Hague. and more recently by the UK ambassador for the occupation, Tzipi Hotovely.

The accusation is that the Zionist occupation is indiscriminate in killing children

From the earliest days of the genocide, the death toll in Gaza for children has exceeded all other conflicts in recent years.

By the end of October 2023, Save the Children said that more children had been killed in the Gaza Strip in the first three weeks of the slaughter that followed 7th October 2023 than in every other armed conflict annually since 2019.

In March 2024, UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said more youngsters had died in the four months following 7/10/23 in four years of conflicts across the whole world between 2019 and 2022 - saying

“This war is a war on children. It is a war on their childhood and their future.”

By one year, Oxfam said that more women and children had been killed in Gaza by the Israeli military than any other recent conflict in a single year.These are not antisemitic accusations of “Blood Libel” against Jewish people - many of whom have expressed their revulsion of the actions committed upon the people of Gaza.

These are concerns based on evidence that the Zionist occupying force, armed and abetted by their backers in western colonial states, have killed record numbers of children in this conflict and not got close to their declared military objectives - and that this is unacceptable.

Indiscriminate attacks? Targeting Children? Or just victims of war?

“Israel” argues it is the most moral army in the world, trying to target its military opponents who use human shields - so women, children, civilians, health workers, aid workers, journalists, hospitals, mosques, churches - all of these are ‘collateral damage’ - despite their professed military precision and unparalleled advantage in terms of intelligence.

Yet the evidence above suggests either deliberately indiscriminate slaughter, or unparalleled military incompetence.

In some cases the concerns go further and suggest there has been a deliberate targeting of children.

In an interview with CBS, Dr. Mark Perlmutter, an orthopedic surgeon from North Carolina, and vice president of the International College of Surgeons described how the civilian casualties included disproportionate numbers of children -

"All of the disasters I've seen, combined – 40 mission trips, 30 years, Ground Zero, earthquakes, all of that combined – doesn't equal the level of carnage that I saw against civilians in just my first week in Gaza…And the civilian casualties are almost exclusively children. I've never seen that before. I’ve seen more incinerated children than I've ever seen in my entire life, combined. I've seen more shredded children in just the first week … missing body parts, being crushed by buildings, the greatest majority, or bomb explosions, the next greatest majority…And then there's sniper bullets. I have children that were shot twice."

When asked "You're saying that children in Gaza are being shot by snipers?” he replied:

“Definitively. I have two children that I have photographs of that were shot so perfectly in the chest, I couldn't put my stethoscope over their heart more accurately, and directly on the side of the head, in the same child. No toddler gets shot twice by mistake by the 'world's best sniper.' And they're dead-center shots."

He is far from the only medic to have reported such targeted sniper shots in the heart of the chest

Genocidal Rhetoric supports the idea it is indiscriminate violence

All of this is set against the backdrop that the occupation’s most senior people made public statements of genocidal intent.

Several of these can be seen in the video below, produced by 5Pillars.

Netanyahu’s statement to “remember what Amalek has done to you”, as well as occupation’s “President” Herzog’s statement “It is an entire nation out there that is responsible” were in October 2023, at the outset of the slaughter to ethnically cleanse Gaza.

According to Middle East Eye and NBC News in June 2024 an official account representing Israel on social media platform X shared a video on Tuesday claiming "there are no innocent civilians" in Gaza.

On May 20–21, 2025, a former Knesset member Moshe Feiglin stated on Israeli Channel 12 and Channel 14: “Every child, every baby in Gaza is an enemy. The enemy is not Hamas... We need to conquer Gaza and colonize it, and not a single Gazan child should remain there. There is no other form of victory.”

On May 18, 2025, Major General (Res.) Eitan Ben Eliyahu, who served as commander of the Israeli Air Force from 1996 to 2000, stated: “The [baby] who was just born in one of [Gaza’s] hospitals is a future terrorist.”

In January 2025, Nissim Vaturi, deputy speaker of the Knesset, reportedly said: “Every child born in Gaza is already a terrorist, from the moment of his birth.”

These are but a few examples - and they represent a supremacist ethno-nationalist ideology, that is akin to settler colonialists in other times and places.

A recent opinion found that nearly half of “Israelis” support army killing all Palestinians in Gaza - and an overwhelming number back the forced transfer of Palestinians from Gaza and “Israel” (i.e. the so-called Israeli-Arabs) - which suggests that this is not an opinion that is confined to fringe extremists.

Muslims and The Zionist Occupation - vs - Islam and the Jewish people

In addition to general accusations of antisemitism, there are specific accusations levelled against Islam and Muslims.

Islam and the Jewish people

The Islamic rule of the Caliphate that treated Jews, Christians and others justly and with dignity for centuries – not chasing them out for their differences in religion, unlike the reality against Muslims in the UK today.

To hate the Jewish people on grounds of race or religion would also be to hate the Prophets of the Children of Israel, and their followers amongst the believers, as well as those Jews who later followed the Prophet Muhammad (sallallahu alaihi wasallam) – and this sort of hatred would be unacceptable from an Islamic perspective.

Some falsely claim it is inciting hatred when Muslims quote the Qur’an in Allah chastising the Children of Israel for their shortcomings. However, these accounts of former generations are an example to Muslims – that they too could incur the wrath of Allah if they transgressed as previous generations of believers have done. The dislike of any people mentioned in the Quran who displeased Allah is not on the grounds of race or religion, but on the grounds of their false actions – just as you can respect those people who historically remained faithful to Allah by following the message of their Prophets.

Some argue the rhetoric used against “Israel” in the Middle East is proof of anti-Semitism – but such rhetoric is always present in the context of conflict even when unacceptable in other situations.

Anti-Zionism

What about anti-Zionism? The Jewish people fleeing persecution in Europe were allowed to live within the area that was once the Biblical holy land in the Ottoman Caliphate. However, the establishment of a “homeland” by usurping and occupying someone else’s home – is not only unjust – it is unacceptable from an Islamic perspective.

The fact that this unique historic injustice occurred decades ago does not legitimise it. The abuse and oppression of the Palestinian people for so many years, only makes the situation more untenable.

Even the strong supporter of Israel, Martin Amis, understood this when he used a metaphor giving the context of historic Jewish persecution in Europe, “Imagine Europe as a burning building for the Jews and you jump to Israel. But if you land on someone you have to answer for that, you can’t say you didn’t land on anyone and you can’t go on landing on him.”

If holding this opinion brings the ire of Trump, Starmer and the like then so be it. They are hypocrites who persecute religious minorities one day and then cry anti-Semitism the next. They say ‘never again’ on anniversaries of world wars, but arm and finance the genocide in Gaza today.

British and European guilt over their own historic anti-Semitism is not a justification for an illegitimate occupation of someone else’s land.

The infamous Balfour declaration was little more than a bargaining tool at the time looking for Jewish support in World War One. For the ruling class, just as with the anti-Semitism/anti-Zionism debate today, it was, and always has been more about British foreign policy interests than any genuine concern for oppressed people.

The Testimony of Jewish People

There have been many voices from amongst world Jewry that counters this stereotype about the attitude towards Jews by Islam and Muslims.

In one video interview an antiZionist Rabbi remembered the positive experience of Jews in the Islamic Caliphate.

Similarly the respected academic and author, Professor Avi Shlaim recalls his experience of being an Arab Jew in Iraq, living side by side with Arab Muslims and Arab Christians without enmity - until covert Zionist terrorists committed acts of violence against Jews, causing them to seek refuge in the new Zionist ‘state’.

AntiZionism and AntiSemitism are two different beasts. We should not abandon speaking about the former whilst opponents use the latter to silence criticism and exposure of the crimes of the occupation.

Abdul Wahid has been active in Muslim affairs in the UK for over 25 years. He has been published on the websites of Foreign Policy, Open Democracy, the Times Higher Educational Supplement, and Prospect Magazine. You can follow him on X/Twitter @AbdulWahid_X.