Answering the Libels (Part 2)

 The Ethnostate Libel

This libel insists that Israel is an "ethnostate," defined by racial exclusion and supremacist intent — a Jewish version of apartheid South Africa or Nazi Germany. It ignores that Israel is a civic democracy, home to over two million Arab citizens, alongside Druze, Circassians, and others, with full voting rights, legal protections, and representation in parliament, the courts, and civil society.

Like all nation-states, Israel prioritizes the self-determination of a particular people — in this case, the Jews — but it does so without negating the civil equality of others. The libel collapses the distinction between ethnic self-determination and racial supremacy, and in doing so, it reframes the very concept of a Jewish state as inherently immoral. Its aim is not critique — it is the delegitimization of Jewish nationhood.

The Apartheid Libel

The apartheid libel accuses Israel of operating a racialized system of segregation akin to white South Africa, with Jews as the ruling caste and Palestinians as a disenfranchised underclass. This comparison is both false and inflammatory. It ignores the distinction between Arab citizens of Israel — who enjoy equal legal rights — and Palestinians in disputed or occupied territories, whose political status is shaped by a long, complex conflict with competing national claims.

This libel treats security infrastructure (checkpoints, the security barrier, restricted zones) — built in response to decades of terrorism — as evidence of racial hatred rather than defense policy. It inverts causality, blaming Jewish fear and survival mechanisms as the origin of Palestinian suffering, and renders Jewish self-defense as aggression. The apartheid libel is not aimed at reform. It is aimed at erasure.

Learn more:

§  The Apartheid Myth – HonestReporting
A short but powerful resource breaking down why the term “apartheid” is false and misleading when applied to Israel.

§  Apartheid and the Media’s Complicity in a Modern-Day Libel – CAMERA
Examines how major news outlets amplify the apartheid narrative without context or fact-checking, effectively spreading a modern blood libel. 

The Organ & Skin Theft Libel

This libel revives perhaps the oldest and most lurid antisemitic myth: that Jews murder the innocent and profit from their bodies. Modernized for today’s conflicts, it accuses Israeli forces of harvesting Palestinian organs, trafficking body parts, or — in its most grotesque version — tanning Palestinian skin. These claims, while entirely baseless, are circulated with solemn intensity by academics, activists, and state actors.

These narratives are not just lies — they are ritualistic reenactments of ancient fantasies. They reduce Jews to archetypes of demonic cruelty. And they serve one purpose: to create an emotional environment in which Jewish lives are not only unworthy of empathy, but deserving of vengeance.

Learn more:

§  The Blood Libel That Won’t Quit – Tablet Magazine
A deep dive into the history and durability of the organ theft accusation, tracing its evolution from the 2009 Aftonbladet scandal to its viral afterlife on social media.