It is a strange feature of the conservative and right-wing response to antisemitism both in the United Kingdom and the United States, that the form it largely takes is not that of identifying actual cases of antisemitism and acting on them, but of criminalizing solidarity with Palestine.

After 150,000 people marched in London against the genocide in Gaza, Britain’s home secretary, Suella Braverman, described the protest as an “intimidating mob” whose slogan “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” meant “the destruction of Israel.” Eric Pickles, who as well as serving as a Conservative MP also occupies the position of the United Kingdom’s Special Envoy for Post-Holocaust Issues, a body largely responsible for the care of precious artifacts, went further. The slogan, which originated in the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) campaign to achieve a secular democratic state across the whole of the territory that Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem says is ruled by a system of “Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea,” is an “ethnic cleansing chant,” Pickles outrageously claimed.

There is, of course, no contradiction between being antisemitic and being a passionate supporter of the state of Israel. The current Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his son, whom no one could accuse of wishing to free Palestine from the river to the sea, trade openly in George Soros conspiracy theories. In interviews, the latter has claimed that a global elite of radical leftists funded by the Jewish philanthropist control much of the media.