There’s Only One Nation the World Believes Shouldn’t ExistPolitically, I am a Bill Clinton/Joe Biden/Al Gore Democrat—I do not support the ideological fringes of either party.
I detest Donald Trump and most of what MAGA stands for. I oppose extreme right-wing ideology, particularly the anti-Semitism and bigotry of White Nationalists.
I do not support the left-wing fringe, even though the Democratic Party has almost always had my support. I do believe in civil rights, democracy, alliances, diplomacy, tolerance, and the rule of law (which is why I’ve always been a Democrat).
Today, though, hard-left fringe groups now seem to be taking the Democratic Party in a direction that is almost as offensive as what Donald Trump has done to the Republicans. Jewish Democrats like me find it particularly painful to watch what has happened to parts of the Democratic coalition on the issues of Israel’s right to defend itself and antisemitism in general.
As a result, I no longer recognize some of the people I once admired.
New York City has the largest Jewish population of any city in the United States. Recently, “Nakba Day” was recognized and commemorated by NYC’s Mayor. In doing so, the mayor ignored Jewish historical Trauma, signaled his indifference to Israeli Security concerns, legitimized a narrative that treats Israel’s very creation as a catastrophe, and alienated many Jewish Democrats who once felt politically at home in the party.
“Nakba” refers not simply to displacement during war, but in many political contexts to the belief that the creation of Israel was illegitimate or catastrophic. When politicians publicly commemorate “Nakba Day” without equally acknowledging why Israel was created, why Jews believed they needed a homeland, or why Israel immediately faced invasion after declaring independence, many Jewish Americans hear something profoundly unsettling.
To many Jews, it does not sound like a call for coexistence. Many Jews hear Nakba commemorations as a rejection of Israel’s right to exist. Most Jews I know take “from the river to the sea” very literally.
After the horrors of October 7, 2023—after Jewish families were butchered, women raped, children murdered, and hostages dragged through the streets by Hamas terrorists—too many voices on the American left seemed less interested in condemning terrorism than in explaining it away.
Many condemned it initially, but such condemnation was short-lived. Within days, the conversation shifted. In that short period of time, the world’s attention turned from the massacre of innocent women, children, and hostages to Israel’s response.
The language escalated almost immediately: “colonizer,” “apartheid,” “genocide.”
Genocide?
As a Jew, I cannot adequately describe how grotesque that word feels in this context.
The descendants of Holocaust survivors—the people whose families lived through the actual industrialized extermination of six million Jews—are now being accused of genocide for defending the only Jewish state on earth.
This, after the largest mass murder of Jews since World War II.
Criticize Israeli policy? Fine. Israelis do it every day. Debate settlements? Military tactics? Prime ministers? Coalition politics? Fair game. But there is a difference between criticizing a government and denying a nation’s moral legitimacy.
And that distinction is disappearing. Historical context matters, even when activists prefer to erase it.
In 1947, the United Nations proposed a partition plan creating both a Jewish state and an Arab state. Jewish leaders accepted it. Arab leaders rejected it. Why?
Arab leaders opposed the creation of a sovereign Jewish state in Palestine.
Many Arab leaders at the time explicitly rejected Jewish national sovereignty there altogether, not merely the specific borders of the proposal. So, when Israel declared independence in 1948, it was immediately invaded by neighboring Arab armies determined to destroy it.
That pattern—war, terrorism, rejectionism, and refusal to accept Israel’s permanence—did not begin in October 2023. Israel has lived under recurring attack since birth and, still, it repeatedly pursues peace.
1947–48: The UN proposed partition: one Jewish state, one Arab state. Jewish leadership accepted; Arab leadership rejected. After Israel declared independence on May 14, 1948, five Arab nations invaded.
1956: Israel fought Egypt during the Suez Crisis.
1967: Egypt, Syria, and Jordan mobilized against Israel; Israel won the Six-Day War, capturing Sinai, Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights.
1973: Egypt and Syria attacked Israel on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish year. Israel survived again.
1982: Israel invaded Lebanon after years of PLO attacks from Lebanese territory.
2000–2005: The Second Intifada brought suicide bombings into Israeli buses, cafés, hotels, and streets. In 2005, Israel withdrew from Gaza, dismantling settlements. What followed was not peace but the rise of Hamas and rockets, tunnels, kidnappings, and, ultimately, October 7.
2006: Hezbollah, backed by Iran, fought Israel from Lebanon.
2023–present: Hamas carried out the October 7 massacre, triggering the current war.
Through all of this, Israel never responded by embracing exterminationist ideology. It did not conclude that Arab life was expendable. And that is true even though Arab armies and terrorist organizations have repeatedly sought the destruction of Jews and the Jewish state.
Even though Arab armies and terrorist groups keep trying to destroy Israel, this tiny country has always negotiated from a position that human life, all human life, is precious. That is why it has always been willing to trade land for peace. Yet, anti-Israel sentiment from its neighbors has defined Israel’s existence since its birth.
Israel repeatedly explored land-for-peace arrangements. One may argue about Israeli governments, settlements, tactics, or policy failures. But the historical record does not support this fantasy that Israel has been the party uniquely addicted to war.
At some point, honest people must ask difficult questions.
Words matter. Genocide is not a synonym for “a war with terrible civilian casualties.”
The Holocaust was not a response to terrorism.
The Armenian genocide was not a counterterrorism campaign.
Rwanda was not a military retaliation.
Those were systematic extermination projects directed at civilian populations because of who they were.
Israel’s war against Hamas emerged only after the largest massacre of Jews since World War II—a massacre carried out by a terrorist organization that openly promises more attacks of the same kind. Is it really surprising that a people who lost six million Jews in the Holocaust would respond to October 7 with overwhelming determination to ensure such vulnerability never happens again?
One may debate Israeli strategy, proportionality, leadership, or military conduct. But collapsing a just war into “genocide” does not clarify history. It erases distinctions that history desperately needs us to preserve.
And here is another historical reality: For generations, Jews lived throughout the Middle East—in Iraq, Egypt, Yemen, Libya, Syria, and elsewhere. Today, those communities are largely gone. Not because Zionists expelled them—but because hostility, persecution, intimidation, confiscation, violence, and political repression made Jewish life in many Arab countries impossible.
Christian populations across parts of the Middle East have also dramatically declined under the pressure of extremism, sectarianism, terrorism, discrimination, and political instability.
Those atrocities are barely mentioned. Somehow, the world remains focused almost exclusively on Israel—the one Middle Eastern country where Muslims, Christians, Jews, Druze, and others still live under a democratic system with voting rights, political representation, and legal protections.
That does not make Israel perfect. No democracy at war is perfect. But it does raise an uncomfortable question:
Why is the Jewish state treated as uniquely illegitimate while genuine ethnic and religious cleansing across the region generates comparatively fleeting outrage?
Perhaps the answer is one many Jews are increasingly afraid to say aloud:
Anti-Zionism has become, in some circles, a socially acceptable vehicle for very old hatred: Antisemitism.
Is every critic of Israel antisemitic? No. But antisemitism has clearly found a comfortable home inside parts of modern anti-Zionist activism. And many Jews who once felt politically secure inside the Democratic Party are beginning to wonder whether there is still room for us there.
So, yes,
I believe in civil rights.
I believe in democracy.
I believe in tolerance and coexistence.
I believe these things belong to all races, religions, and cultures, including the Jewish people.
And I believe Jews have the right to live in peace in their ancestral homeland without being uniquely demonized for surviving repeated attempts to destroy them.
I am old enough to remember when liberals believed Jews were a vulnerable minority deserving protection, not a privileged class deserving suspicion.
I am old enough to remember when progressives understood why Israel existed.
And I am old enough to recognize when ancient hatred learns a new language.
Today, it calls itself anti-colonialism, Anti-Zionism, or simply ‘Resistance.’
But when the world reserves its deepest moral fury almost exclusively for the world’s only Jewish state—even after the slaughter of Jewish civilians—many Jews recognize the pattern.
We have seen versions of it before. And it is still called Jew hatred or antisemitism.
That recognition is precisely why Israel exists.
Apparently, in today’s political climate, even saying that makes you controversial.
Mark M. Bello is an attorney and award-winning author of the Zachary Blake Legal Thriller Series, ripped-from-the-headlines, realistic fiction that speaks truth to power and champions the rights of citizens in our justice system. These novels are dedicated to the social justice movement. They educate, spark discussion, and inspire readers to action. One of these was “Betrayal of Justice, a blistering novel about presidential misconduct and hypocrisy” For more information, please visit www.markmbello.com.
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