Anti-Jewish hate crimes in New York City have already surged 8.5% this year under new mayor Zohran Mamdani, the New York Police Department just reported.  

In not unrelated news this week, fellow Israel-hater Abdul El-Sayed won Michigan’s Democratic nomination for United States Senate.  

Not that Mamdani, El-Sayed or suddenly accommodationist fellow Democrats openly acknowledge their hostility – at least not yet.  

Instead, one hears the same carefully rehearsed refrain:  We aren’t hostile toward Israel or Jews, we simply oppose Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.  

That’s a rationalization designed to soothe, but it grows less credible by the hour.  

Anti-Semitic and anti-Israel rhetoric is no longer confined to college campuses awash in tent encampments and activist organizations with too much time on their hands chanting “From the River to the Sea” – a slogan understood to call for eliminating Israel itself.  That sort of incitement now finds shelter among elected Democrats themselves.  

Meanwhile, as El-Sayed’s victory illustrates, Democratic Socialist fellow-travelers who openly embrace anti-Israel positions are winning Democratic primaries while establishment Democrats who once proudly described themselves as supporters of Israel steadily migrate toward positions that only a decade ago would’ve been unthinkable.  

The convenient scapegoat always seems to be the same:  It’s not Israel, it’s Netanyahu.  

Pardon the skepticism, but Americans have repeatedly witnessed a similar dynamic in domestic U.S. politics.  

Namely, for decades many on the political left treated each succeeding Republican president or vice-president as the latest incarnation of Adolf Hitler.  Goldwater, Nixon, Reagan, Bush, Cheney, Trump.  But that always follows a familiar pattern:  Each one becomes rehabilitated in retrospect as a comparison point to the new Hitler, especially if they oppose the current incarnation.  Dick Cheney, once denounced as a warmonger and among the darkest villains in American political history, suddenly gained respect after publicly opposing President Trump.  George W. Bush likewise experienced something of a public rehabilitation among progressives – not because his beliefs changed, but because the current political target had shifted.  

The new villain simply rotates, while the rhetoric and broader animosity remain.  

Similarly, animosity toward Israel, the world’s only Jewish state, is superficially personalized through Netanyahu.  Replace him, they insist, and things can return to normal.  

Logic and history, however, suggest otherwise.  

Hostility toward Israel among the American left did not suddenly emerge because of Netanyahu.  The modern anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel predates October 7, and accusations that Israel constitutes a colonial enterprise have circulated for decades.  Efforts to isolate Israel economically, culturally and diplomatically have long targeted the country's legitimacy itself, not merely one particular prime minister.  Before Netanyahu, Ariel Sharon was their bête noire.  

Returning to that fashionable chant "From the River to the Sea," it doesn’t merely call for change in Israel's prime minister.  It refers to the entire territory stretching from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, namely Israel.  It thus denies Israel's right to exist, because it envisions a Palestinian state encompassing all of that territory, rather than a two-state solution.  

Likewise, demands to suspend military assistance and attempts to isolate Israel internationally aren’t policies that become irrelevant once Netanyahu eventually and inevitably leaves office.  

If Netanyahu retired tomorrow, what happens next?  Would chants demanding Israel's elimination suddenly disappear?  Would activists who characterize Zionism itself as illegitimate suddenly reconsider?  Would organizations promoting BDS actions against Israel quietly dissolve?  

Of course not.  A new Israeli prime minister would simply inherit the same accusations.  

He or she will invariably be labeled an extremist, an obstacle to peace or the latest symbol of everything that critics claim is wrong with Israel.  

The scapegoat will evolve, but the hostility will remain.  

That’s why the excuse that this is merely about Netanyahu rings hollow.  

Reasonable people can certainly disagree in good faith with Netanyahu's policies.  Israelis themselves do so every election cycle, and they’re no strangers to political disagreement.  

It’s equally reasonable, however, to spot when criticism of a particular leader becomes a convenient vehicle for something much larger.  

When “From the River to the Sea” slogans calling for the eradication of the world's only Jewish state become commonplace rhetoric and candidates advancing that view increasingly find electoral success, it’s difficult to pretend that the animosity centers on one politician.  

Benjamin Netanyahu will eventually leave office, as every leader does.  When that day arrives, however, don't expect the protests to end, the boycott demands to disappear or the slogans to change.  

And don’t expect Israel to instantly receive the recognition, respect and national legitimacy that critics claim they’re prepared to extend once Netanyahu is gone.  

That’s because the problem for so many of Israel’s loudest critics has never been Netanyahu.  It is Israel, or even Jews themselves.