During anti-Israel demonstrations in the context of the recent Gaza-crisis, demonstrators shouted the slogan “Kindermörder Israel” (“Child-killer Israel”).

The president of Turkey, popular amongst many Turks in Germany, said in a public broadcast that Israel are such murderous bloodsuckers that they even kill small five- and six-year old children.

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The trope of the child-murdering Jew goes back to the middle ages where the blood libel, the legend that Jews are using the blood of children to bake matzos, was a justification to attack Jewish communities. Today it is used to demonize the Jewish state.

A differentiated discussion of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict becomes impossible if Israel is painted as a child-murdering entity. Peace is thus not achievable. Terrorist-organisations like Hamas are emboldened to use children as human shields for their rocket attacks on Israel, because killed children help their cause. Jews all around the world are further associated with Israel and this revived blood-libel becomes justification to attack synagogues and individual Jews.

There have been several attacks on individuals, recognizable because they were wearing a kippah, in the context of these kinds of demonstrations. The emotional strength of such an accusation lets people become irrational and completely uninhibited. Another example is a (non-Jewish) student in Vienna who had been attacked and insulted in the Metro for reading a book about Jewish culture as a “Jewish slut” and “child murderer”. The public discourse becomes unhinged, and Jews and those associated with them are dehumanized.

One can argue that Israel tries to minimize civilian casualties as they are not in their interest – they are only useful to Hamas to use as propaganda. Before shooting rockets at houses Israel actually informs civilians to leave those houses. Also, the connection to the medieval blood libel is very blatant and obviously revived to serve new purposes of demonizing Israel.

References

Police berate victim of Vienna metro attack for ‘acting provocatively’ by reading book about Jews (newspaper article about the attack on the student in the Vienna metro as a “child murderer”, published on June 3, 2021, in British daily newspaper The Times)

“Kindermörder”: USA verurteilen Erdogans Äußerungen zu Israel (news article about Erdogan speaking of Israelis as child murderers, published on May 19, 2005, in Euro news)

Sie riefen „Kindermörder Israel“ | RBB schwärmt von „ganz toller Atmosphäre“ bei antisemitischer Hass-Demo (news-clip about demonstrators shouting “Kindermörder Israel” in Berlin, published May 20, 2021, in German tabloid newspaper Bild)

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