I was born and raised in Tel-Aviv, Israel. On the evening of Nov. 4, 1995, I attended a rally there to support Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s peace initiative. At the end of the rally, an ultranationalist assassinated Rabin.

The next morning, an IDF soldier I was speaking with insisted that everyone at the rally had been a paid Arab demonstrator. I was astonished. I realized then that there were two entirely different media ecosystems in Israel. The media diet that this soldier fed on flattened the political conversation between us and them, friends and enemies, Jews and Arabs. The premise left no room for debate, no room for humanity and no room for me. I left Israel a few years later, hoping to never engage in this type of politics again.

I was reminded of this incident after reading the recent Jewish press coverage of Rep. Summer Lee. Designating opponents as enemies to outrage and then mobilize supporters is a dangerous tactic sadly popular among some politicians. Rather than viewing political rivalry as a battle over ideas, policies or approaches, these politicians — often militaristic and authoritarian — instead see their opponents as threats to be excised from the body politic and destroyed.

Now, yet again, I am faced with the politics of enemies. And it once again revolves around my home country, Israel. This isn’t a new phenomenon in America, but since Oct. 7, it has become more acute. Anyone who supports a ceasefire and/or feels sympathy for Palestinian victims is labeled an antisemite. So is anyone who contextualizes the Oct. 7 massacre. If you are Jewish, they call you a self-hating Jew. Or not a real Jew at all. The irony of this happening despite a long Jewish intellectual tradition of robust debate is not lost on me.

Antisemitism in American society is real, and unfortunately on the rise. But I fear that this frivolous deployment of the term for political gain is making real antisemitism lose its meaning. We no longer need to use a definition to explain why something is antisemitic. Often we don’t have to explain it at all. Just calling someone an “antisemite” is enough. And who would debate an antisemite? Who would consider an antisemite a legitimate political rival? No one. Except for maybe other antisemites.

So if you stand in vigil for Palestinian children, you must be an antisemite because all Palestinians are our enemies. And any means to destroy them are acceptable. We can take their words out of context. We can manipulate their photos. Lie about what they did.

This is a politics of affect. The goal is to stir up negative emotions. To foster a paranoia where all differences, even among Jews, are existential threats. Here it is designed to make us fear anyone who questions the morality of the occupation or the war, people like Summer Lee, me and countless others.

The deployment of antisemitism to distinguish friends from enemies reduces democratic politics to a zero sum game. According to this logic, Lee’s decision to attend CAIR Philadelphia’s banquet was not based on her sympathy for her Muslim constituents or on legitimate criticism of Israeli policies and the U.S. government’s unwavering support for them. Rather her decision is because she is an antisemite. And there is nothing she can do to disassociate from that label. If she decided to attend, she would have been labeled an antisemite. When she decided to withdraw, she only admitted her antisemitism. If she keeps donations from “antisemites,” she is one. If she returns them, she concedes it was wrong to receive them in the first place. The poet Maya Angelou once said: “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” And when we label Summer Lee an antisemite, this is our goal. We want our community to fear her as an existential threat and to blindly vote for her opponent.

The consequences are dire for the society at large. It erodes our democracy, prevents an honest discussion of the issues, and allows us to treat our fellow citizens like enemies. Such authoritarian politics have no place in a democratic society.

But the ramifications are particularly acute for the Jewish community. In 2018, Pittsburgh’s Jewish community suffered the deadliest attack on Jewish life in the history of the United States. It reminded us Jews what it’s like when violent antisemites roam the streets. Yet, those labeling Lee and other good faith critics of Israel as “antisemetic” are not addressing this reality. In fact, they cheapen existing antisemitism by using it as a cudgel to mobilize people to vote for this candidate and not another. By doing this, we create a situation in which violent and dangerous antisemites are just run-of-the-mill. Even a caricature. And if another Tree of Life happens, and people tell us it was about the fear of immigrants and had nothing to do with the ethnicity or religion of the victims? We will have little to say. And shaky moral ground to stand on.

Maya Haber is an Israeli American and the founder of Groundworks PA, which provides strategic support for nonprofits.

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