The ancient lie has returned—dressed in modern language, but no less deadly.
When Francesca Albanese of the United Nations and groups like Cornell’s Graduate Student Union falsely accuse Israel of “genocide,” they’re not making a political argument. They’re reviving one of history’s oldest and most destructive weapons against the Jewish people: the blood libel.
You know what a blood libel is. For centuries, Jews were falsely accused of using Christian blood to make matzos—a vicious lie that led to pogroms, expulsions, and massacres across Europe. The accusation changed with each generation, but the formula remained the same: accuse Jews of the most horrific crime imaginable, then stand back and watch the violence unfold.
Today’s blood libel doesn’t mention matzos or blood. But make no mistake—accusing Israel of genocide while Hamas openly calls for the extermination of Jews is the same ancient playbook. It’s Joseph Goebbels’ strategy: accuse your enemy of exactly what you yourself are doing.
And it’s working. That should terrify every person of conscience.
The Truth About Blood Libels
A blood libel is any false accusation of an atrocity designed to incite hatred and violence against the accused. History overflows with examples.
Emperor Nero falsely blamed Christians for burning Rome so he could feed them to lions. In 1921, false accusations against a Black man sparked the Tulsa massacre. Fabricated claims of witchcraft sent innocent people, mostly women, to their deaths in Europe and Salem. Yellow journalism’s (more likely than not) lies about Spain blowing up the USS Maine launched a war that killed thousands of Americans and Spaniards.
Notice the pattern? The lie doesn’t just harm those accused—it corrupts and destroys everyone who believes it.
Why This Matters to You
The ideology behind October 7th didn’t start with Hamas, and it won’t end there. This is the same darkness that drove the September 11th attacks, the Paris massacres of 2015, the Mumbai killings, the Boston Marathon bombing, the Fort Hood shooting, and attacks on churches and Christmas markets across Europe. Most recently, it manifested in an alleged New Year’s Eve pipe bomb plot against the United States.
This depraved ideology threatens Jews, Christians, Hindus, Muslims, women, and LGBT people alike. It is hostis humani generis—an enemy of civilized humanity itself.
That’s why those who spread anti-Israel blood libels must be confronted and marginalized through every lawful means available. And make no mistake—there are many such means, and they’re being deployed effectively.
The Tide Is Turning
The American Studies Association has lost organizational memberships because of its support for boycotting Israel. Jewish Voice for Peace faces a class action lawsuit for shutting down traffic, and there are growing calls to revoke its tax-exempt status for illegal civil disobedience. Careers have been derailed by StopAntisemitism.org and the Canary Mission. Foreign nationals who violated laws and expressed support for terrorists have been targeted for deportation.
Georgetown University, despite its infestation with Qatari money, finally cut ties with Francesca Albanese. The United States has sanctioned her for spewing “unabashed antisemitism,” expressing support for terrorism, and showing “open contempt for the United States, Israel, and the West.”
The United States has even imposed sanctions on the International Criminal Court for “illegitimate and baseless actions targeting America and our close ally Israel.”
What Commandments Require of Us
The Commandments of Judaism and Christianity forbid false witness. Islam depicts lying as haram (forbidden) and liars as apostates. At the US Military Academy, lying is “one strike and you’re out” under the Honor Code—and so is tolerating those who lie.
Anybody who tells a blood libel, whether about Jews or others, is a liar. Those affiliated with organizations spreading these lies need to exercise their rights to distance themselves and refuse to tolerate such falsehoods. This isn’t just about politics—it’s about moral integrity.
Understanding the Big Lie
Adolf Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf that the “broad masses of the people” are more easily deceived by a big lie than a small one, because few believe anybody would have the audacity to tell such an outrageous falsehood. Those who accuse Israel of genocide are simply using Hitler’s methods today.
They belong in the same category as Emperor Nero, the journalists who incited the Spanish-American War, witch-hunters, and the provocateurs who sparked the Tulsa riot.
Let’s make this simple: genocide is a large-scale hate crime motivated by hatred of the victims’ race, religion, or ethnicity. The Nazis targeted Jews, Romany, and Slavic people. The Turks targeted Armenians. The motive is hatred, pure and simple.
But casualties and displacements, even on a massive scale, can be lawful and necessary when they serve legitimate military objectives.
Historical Precedents Matter
The openly-stated goal of the Sullivan Expedition of 1779 was to “completely destroy the principal villages and food supplies of the Cayuga and Seneca Indian Nations.” The motive had nothing to do with dislike of Native Americans and everything to do with stopping raids and preventing another Wyoming Massacre. (This refers to the Wyoming Valley in Pennsylvania, for which the Western state is named.) Natives who didn’t participate in these actions weren’t targeted.
Nobody calls the literal decimation—killing one in every ten—of Germany’s population during World War II a genocide, because “Nazi” isn’t a race, religion, or ethnicity. Most Germans who died were unfortunately not Nazis, but the Nazis were ultimately responsible for the deaths of innocent Germans, just as Hamas is responsible for all the fatalities in Gaza, including innocent Arabs murdered or used as human shields.
The depraved, violent, Dark Age ideology of Hamas and its cohorts—Al Qaeda, ISIS, Hezbollah—isn’t a race, religion, or ethnicity either. King Abdullah of Jordan calls those who practice it takfiryun, essentially evildoers who blaspheme by using Islam and invoking Allah to justify their crimes. When ISIS burned a Muslim pilot alive in a cage, King Abdullah hanged two ISIS prisoners in response.
The Stench at Cornell
In November 2025, Cornell University’s Graduate Student Union passed a resolution “Committing to BDS Guidelines for Solidarity With the ‘Palestinian Liberation Struggle,'” adding that “Cornell is implicated in the Israeli genocide of Palestinians.”
Carl Rosen, General President of United Electrical Workers (CGSU’s parent union), defended this blood libel: “As Israel continues to engage in what more and more people agree is genocide, it is clearer than ever that our members’ principled support of non-violent means to end the slaughter is on the right side of history.”
History lesson, Carl: The Allies ended the slaughter in Europe by disarming and disbanding the Nazi Party. It’s now a crime in Germany to be a Nazi. The same thing needs to happen in Gaza.
Iran, a state sponsor of terrorism, is credibly accused of bribing South Africa to bring the false genocide accusation to the International Court of Justice. If this is the kind of company CGSU and UE want to keep, they should be viewed accordingly.
Two consequences come immediately to mind. First, it’s clear that Ivy League tuition—and not just at Cornell—is a waste of money when students and faculty are so divorced from facts that they promote these false narratives. Cornell and many other major universities are infested with money from Qatar, a backer of Hamas and therefore another state sponsor of terrorism.
Second, Cornell graduate students and other UE members have signed a letter disowning their union. The rest need to follow suit to disassociate themselves from the stench. They need to exercise their Beck rights to essentially quit the union and pay only those dues related to collective bargaining. The National Labor Relations Board explains, “Known as objectors, they are no longer full members but are still protected by the union contract.”
How Israel Actually Fights
Israel has bent over backward to avoid harming innocent people, to the extent of fighting house to house rather than doing what every other military commander on earth would do.
During World War II, Air Marshal Sir Arthur Harris proclaimed that the whole of Germany’s cities were not worth the life of a single British Grenadier—meaning he was willing to level the entire country so Britons wouldn’t have to fight in the streets of German cities.
The United States dropped leaflets on Japan warning civilians that “bombs have no eyes,” that military assets would be struck without warning, and that civilians should stay well clear. Unlike the US, Israel warns civilians of specific impending strikes so they can get out of the way, which however warns the terrorists as well. When President Harry Truman faced the prospect of “Okinawa from one end of Japan to the other,” he used nuclear weapons.
Gaza has gotten off very lightly for October 7th and its subsequent mistreatment and murder of hostages.
There Is No Middle Ground
When it comes to Pearl Harbor, the Bataan Death March, September 11th, or October 7th, there can be no middle ground.
As President George W. Bush said of the September 11th attacks: You are either with us or you are with the terrorists.
President Truman said of the perpetrators of the Bataan Death March and Pearl Harbor: “When you have to deal with a beast you have to treat him as a beast. It is most regrettable but nevertheless true.”
Before World War II, groups like America First opposed Lend-Lease to Britain. Even if they weren’t Nazi sympathizers, they were dupes, stooges, useful idiots, and water-carriers for Nazis. Today, people who make up false accusations against Ukraine are similarly tools for Vladimir Putin.
Those who blood libel Israel, and those who support boycott, divestment, and sanctions, are water-carriers for terrorists—regardless of their intentions.
The ancient lie has returned. The question is: Will you stand with truth, or will you let the blood libel spread unchallenged?
Bill Levinson is the author of numerous articles and books, and a diligent student of history and psychological warfare.
