“A lie has no legs,” is how the powerful letter ends.
The letter, which denounces the “genocide” accusation against Israel, was signed by more than 5,000 prominent leaders across entertainment, academia and public life.
Released on the eve of Rosh Hashanah by Creative Community for Peace, the statement warns that “the charge has become a dangerous vehicle for scapegoating Jews and fueling antisemitism around the world.”
The letter was co-written by Yossi Klein Halevi, Rabbi Yitz Greenberg, Rabbi Micha Odenheimer and Professor Jonathan Karp, who make a succinct, compelling case debunking what I call the lie of the century.
The prominence of the signatories signals how ominous this threat has become. Like a friend said to me recently, “there’s nothing after genocide.”
Indeed there isn’t, as one can tell from language that doesn’t hold back:
“We the undersigned are outraged and sickened by the latest blood libel to be inflicted on the Jewish people. We reject this accusation with contempt.”
The signatories include Boris Johnson, Deborah Lipstadt, Niall Ferguson, Shari Redstone, Benny Morris, Steven Pinker, Haim Saban, Sherry Lansing, Simon Sebag Montefiore, Dara Horn, Irwin Cotler, Jonathan Greenblatt, Debra Messing, Judea Pearl, David Wolpe, Michael Berenbaum, Mayim Bialik and thousands of others.
The statement concludes by “urging our fellow Jews and our non-Jewish friends to treat the accusation of genocide with revulsion,” quoting the ancient Hebrew proverb: “A lie has no legs.”
The final line distills the mission: “We will not allow this lie to stand.”
It is as strong an effort as one can imagine: a highly credible letter endorsed by some of the most credible people on earth to debunk a libel that threatens Jews everywhere. It’s a must read for anyone who may still harbor doubts.
Will it make a difference?
I pray it does, but I also pray that the poison hasn’t gone too far.
You see, the most threatening aspect of a libel is when it turns into a label.
A libel is a statement; a label is an identity.
A libel is about what you did; a label is who you are.
Labeling Jews, whether as villains or traitors or connivers, was always the goal of Jew haters– not only to hate us but to define us. The birth of Israel empowered them to take the label to murderous levels.
The writers picked up on this:
“Already on October 8,” they write, “as Israel was still fighting terrorists within its border communities and hadn’t yet begun burying its dead, anti-Zionists began raising the cry of ‘genocide.’ In fact, Israel’s enemies have been accusing it of genocide for decades.”
For these anti-Zionist mobs, Gaza became their bonanza. Through the easy optics of destruction that inundated social media, slapping the label of “genocide” on Israel was lethally convenient. No wonder it spread like an epidemic.
It has become routine these days to hear people in the mainstream connect Israel to “genocide” as they might connect MAGA to Trump.
The libel, in other words, has become a label.
The nefarious purpose of that label, as the writers say, is “to delegitimize Jewish self-determination and to turn the only Jewish state into the world’s arch criminal and pariah.”
From arch criminal to pariah to genocide committers: If you’re inclined to believe bad things about Jews and Israel, the “genocide” label is all you need.
The thing with labels is that they stick. That may be salutary for a group like the Nazis, but to nonchalantly slap the “genocide” label on Israel and its supporters is criminal.
“The bitter irony,” the writers note, “is that Israel, home to half the world’s Jews, is the only country to face a sustained war of attempted genocide – from its inception in 1948 until today.”
Can anything be done to “unstick” this libelous label?
Something in the letter offers a ray of hope:
“A crucial difference between war as tragedy and war as genocide is intent. In this war, only one side intended to commit genocide, and that is Hamas.”
That suggests a strategy for our future efforts: take the genocide label and slap it on the murderers who have earned it.
I can’t think of a more needed communal mission as we begin 5787: We must not allow this label to stick.
Shana Tova.
