From Pitches to Playbills, Israel Is Being Benched
In this opinion piece, Rabbi Abraham Cooper—associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and director of global social action—and Daniel Schuster—the Center’s senior representative in Europe—argue that even if Hamas lays down its arms, the broader campaign against Israel and Jewish communities will grind on. The authors open with the urgent bid to free 48 Israeli hostages and the US-backed “day after” push for Gaza, with President Donald Trump promoting a 21-point proposal that ties a hostage–prisoner exchange to a phased Israeli pullback and new governance arrangements. From there, they pan outward: boycotts, disinvitations, and hostile street rallies are spreading from Europe to North America and Australia, reinforced by social media echo chambers and weak official pushback.
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Examples come fast—calls to bar Israeli teams from the Union of European Football Associations, Eurovision threats, and an Israeli conductor disinvited in Ghent. A new CRIF survey lands like a flare: nearly 1 in 3 young French adults says violence against Jews over Gaza is legitimate, while many respondents concede antisemitism is a danger to society. Cooper and Schuster call the exclusion drive “moral theater,” not a path to peace, and note that repressive regimes still enjoy global cultural platforms even as Israel, a democracy, is shunned.
History shadows the argument. The authors draw a line from 1930s cultural exclusion to today’s efforts to fence Israelis and Jews out of stages, stadiums, and classrooms. They warn that online incitement migrates offline—and that Europe now faces a civic test larger than one war. Read the full piece by Cooper and Schuster to see how they connect diplomacy, culture, and public safety—and why they say the stakes extend far beyond the battlefield.
