'Genocidal Terf': How I became target of anti-Israel activists' self-righteous aggression

There’s an undeniable authoritarian streak within much Western anti-Israel activism that echoes attitudes among some trans rights campaigners

I prefer quirky, tuneful songs over tirades of hatred; small, intimate gigs over festivals and stadiums. Call it cultural conservatism, or reflecting ‘centrist-dad’ tendencies, but my musical taste reflects my politics. An airy-fairy liberal, prone to idealism despite inherent grumpiness, I want, where possible, everyone to rub along harmoniously.

Liberal democracy, thought of as an orchestra, needs the invisible conductor of fairness and anti-authoritarianism to keep everyone on-script. That’s why I push for rigorous debate about contentious issues. Opposing activism that is rooted in shutting down discussion or wishing harm on political opponents is vital.

The aggression and calls for violence at many gender-identity activist protests compelled me to enter the fraught ‘gender wars’ many years ago. Placards saying “F*** Terfs” and “Die JK Rowling” were brandished; images of gallows proliferated among the glitter.

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Bobby Vylan crowdsurfs during the Glastonbury festival where he led the crowd in a chant of 'death, death to the IDF' (Picture: Leon Neal) | Getty Images

Social media nightmare

Seeing such things become commonplace, spilling offline to the ‘real world’, made my skin crawl, not solely due to being one of these placard-wavers’ targets. If anything remotely ‘death to mine enemies’ existed on my ‘side’ of that particular issue, I’d feel similarly.

I opposed celebratory street parties when Margaret Thatcher died. I opposed Nigel Farage being milkshaked. When No-voting politicians were egged on Glasgow’s streets by Yes voters in 2014? I opposed that too.

I don’t think you should urge people to ‘punch a fascist’, particularly given that term is misapplied to leftist feminists among others. All of which explains my problem with two related things. First: navigating social media, which is not a democracy, and often a cacophonous, heckling, nightmare.

Second: the chants of rapper Bobby Vylan at Glastonbury, where he whipped a massive crowd into a frenzied call for “Death to the IDF!” last weekend.

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Attacks on Gaza food queues

Valid critique, even condemnation, can be made of some of the Israel Defence Forces’ actions. According to Haaretz, the Israeli newspaper most critical of its government, these include targeted attacks on people in Gaza queuing for food aid. I know nobody who’d support that, nor anyone who denies the suffering of Palestinians living there. Many Israelis, too, condemn it.

The IDF, however, is the Jewish nation’s only defence against its many enemies, most of whom wish to wipe the country – and its inhabitants – out of existence. Calls for the IDF’s “death”, given conscription is mandatory in Israel, can be fairly interpreted as suggesting something more sinister than a critique of military operations.

As a writer, it goes with the territory that, in a digital age, readers can lambast me easily. All I can do is try to write with clarity, hopeful people won’t wilfully misinterpret. But, as is the case with genderists, twanging the ire of pro-Palestine activists online isn’t difficult.

One group of such zealots branded me a “genocidal Terf” for not supporting the abuse of Eden Golan in Sweden last year. The Israeli Eurovision entrant was booed, ostracised by fellow competitors, and faced death threats, which I – being wholly consistent about such matters – vocally opposed.

At the time, receiving such a bizarre accusation was rare, so it was water off a slightly-appalled duck’s back. But, again, in a mirroring of the tactics of gender activists, such online ‘campaigners’ don’t tend to stop once they’ve made you a target.

Attacks on feminist women commonplace

I was recently tagged into an angry lad’s posts on X. Images of horror. Dead Palestinian children. Bleeding women. Severed limbs. Death.

I had to view these images, he and his supporters insisted, while firing insults, including calling me a “Zionist c***”. If I didn’t gorge on them, and share them, it meant I was a hypocrite and not a “feminist”. I didn’t care about Gaza. All I cared about was “white women”, apparently.

It’s become common amongst the Scottish left-wing to attack feminist women on these grounds, particularly since the Supreme Court judgment, which ruled such women were correct that “woman” means “biological woman” in the Equality Act 2010.

This week, I witnessed a huge pile-on of this nature against Holyrood Magazine editor Mandy Rhodes. In opposing Vylan’s chant, highlighting that Jewish people in attendance could’ve been affected, Rhodes was accused of supporting genocide and being a supporter of all IDF actions.

This was despite the article Rhodes was sharing saying precisely the opposite. It was clear those hounding her hadn’t read it. It doesn’t take much research to discover what Rhodes tweeted was accurate – many Jewish people and organisations have opposed Vylan.

At the same time, swathes of people have sought to justify his death-wishes, even repeating it under Jewish people’s tweets. Unsurprisingly, I am against this ‘activism’.

‘With us entirely or we will destroy you’

Excellent Palestine-focused campaigns exist, advocating for humanitarian relief, legitimate, wholly peaceful protest, or focus on fundraising – I do not include those in this critique.

But there’s an undeniable authoritarian streak within much Western anti-Israel activism. It brooks zero opposition to anything done or said, no matter how heinous, misdirected, and/or counter-productive, under a claim of being ‘pro-Palestine’. It’s rooted not merely in ‘with us or against us’. It’s ‘with us entirely or we will destroy you’.

There are good reasons why a person may not wish to traumatise themselves by viewing atrocity images. Nor do people need to view them to oppose human suffering.

But as Vylan’s tirade – broadcast live on the BBC – shows, this misery-making, self-righteous, brutal aggression doesn’t live solely online. The illiberal actions and chants of many ‘pro-Palestine’ activists – including vandalising buildings, ‘occupying’ arts centres and universities, open and undeniable antisemitism, thwacking a ‘genocide-supporter’ label on opponents, and even, at worst, minimising the murder of Jews in America as justifiable if they support Israel’s existence – are deplorable.

History mayn’t repeat, but it echoes. Israel does exist. Calling for its eradication as your end-goal? There’s a word for that. It starts with a ‘G’.

The orchestra’s strings snap, its trombones block, the conductor falters.

Jenny Lindsay is a writer, poet, essayist, and author of Hounded: Women, Harms and the Gender Wars