The fighters of antisemitism are rushing to the front with silly catchphrases. Perhaps even toxic.

Take the line: “What starts with the Jews doesn’t end with the Jews.”

It is meant to elevate the issue. To make antisemitism feel urgent to those who might otherwise ignore it. But it carries an uncomfortable implication: that what happens to Jews matters most because it might eventually happen to someone else.

Why?

Why is the attack on Jews not sufficient on its own? Why must Jewish suffering be reframed as a warning signal for others before it earns attention?

It is already evil when Jews are targeted and that should be enough. Jews are not canaries in a coal mine for the protection of others. They are millions of innocent people living with threats, violence, and fear. That reality does not need to be universalized to be taken seriously.

Then there is the fallback line: “I condemn antisemitism, but…”

The sentence always breaks in the same place. Everything before the “but” is obligation. Everything after it is the real message.

No one says, “I condemn racism, but…” without immediately undermining themselves. Only with antisemitism does the moral clarity feel negotiable, conditional, open to context. The phrase signals that antisemitism is wrong in theory, but explainable – even understandable.

Or consider the most common defense of Israel: “Israel has a right to exist.”

It sounds firm, but it collapses under even a moment’s scrutiny.

No country has a “right to exist.” Not Singapore. Not Spain. Not South Sudan. Countries exist because history, peoplehood, and political will bring them into being and sustain them.

The real point is that the phrase is uttered because people want to destroy it. Not Montenegro or Guyana. The sole Jewish State.

This isn’t a hundred year old debate about political Zionism and the reestablishment of a Jewish state in their ancestral homeland but a discussion about the genocide of millions of Jews. Why is such phrase ever used? The defenders of Israel should condemn the premise that forced the urge to utter the words.

The more careful phrase “Criticism of Israel is not antisemitism” often lands the same way.

It is true, of course. But it is almost always deployed at the exact moment when the line is being approached, if not crossed. It functions less as clarification and more as insulation, a way to reassure the speaker that whatever comes next cannot be antisemitic, because it has already been declared not to be.

It pre-clears the argument.

All of these phrases share something in common. They take a situation that demands moral clarity and replace it with moral positioning. They allow people to sound serious and defensive while adopting the framework of the accuser.

Attacking Jews is evil. Threatening Jews is evil. Justifying targeted harm against Jews—whether through politics, ideology, or euphemism—is evil.

It is time for anti-antisemites to stop using catchphrases that feel emotionally empowering but are soaked in the lexicon of antisemitism.