The Collapsing Shield
It’s scary to watch antisemitism rise again. It’s natural to want strong defenders, people who will speak up for Jewish safety. And right now, many of those voices are coming from the political right.
But we need to be honest about what kind of protection this is.
For many Jewish people in America, this support feels reassuring. After centuries of displacement, persecution, and genocide, any promise of strong allies feels like safety. The fear is real. The history is real.
But we have to look at who is offering this protection and why.
Much of this “support” isn’t coming from people who care about long-term Jewish safety. It’s coming from powerful conservative religious movements that see Israel as part of their political and religious agenda: a symbol tied to their own vision of power, destiny, and control.
These are some of the same Christian movements that once drove Jews out of Israel centuries ago, that helped spark conflict between Jews and Muslims, and that now believe the Jewish return to Israel is a necessary step to trigger an apocalyptic prophecy — a prophecy where Jews are ultimately either converted or destroyed to bring Jesus back.
At the same time, far-right nationalists seize the opportunity to wrap themselves in “defending Israel” while attacking immigrants, banning black history, stripping civil rights from queer people, and fueling white nationalist movements that have never abandoned their antisemitism.
They chant “Jews will not replace us” on Saturday, and pledge support for Israel on Sunday.
It’s not protection. It’s a tool shaped for an end. And that end has never been Jewish safety.
This isn’t happening by accident.
Project Esther, created by The Heritage Foundation, has been built to engineer what we can call conversation collapse.
Every criticism of Israeli policy becomes framed as antisemitism. Any concern for Palestinian human rights is treated as a threat to Jewish safety. Hard conversations are shut down before they can even happen.
This is the machinery of conversation collapse:
- The space where accountability should happen disappears.
- The space where Jewish safety and universal human rights could coexist disappears.
- The only choices left become blind loyalty or dangerous conspiracy.
And every time the conversation collapses further, the extremes grow stronger.
The Israeli government takes full advantage of this conversation collapse.
Any time someone raises concerns about:
- The bombings,
- The settlements,
- The occupation,
- The walls,
- The daily dehumanization of Palestinians.
it’s instantly framed as antisemitism.
Real accountability disappears.
The government moves forward without limits. The conversation gets shut down. Solidarity fractures. Movements divide.
And all the while, the real danger grows.
The far right gains power. Antisemitism festers beneath the surface, waiting for its opening. The shield weakens.
This collapsing shield doesn’t protect Jewish people.
It isolates them. It leaves them dependent on alliances with people who have always targeted minorities, putting everyone’s long-term safety at risk.**
If we want real safety, we need to stop collapsing every criticism into an attack on our existence.
- We need to hold governments accountable, even Israel.
- We need to defend human dignity for everyone. Not just for those who hold power now.
- We need the courage to stay in the uncomfortable middle, where real safety is built.
We don’t have to stay on this path.
We can hold governments accountable without feeding hatred. We can defend Jewish safety without silencing others. We can reject being used as tools in someone else’s agenda.
But only if we refuse to let fear keep collapsing the conversation.
The only way forward is together. When we stand up for everyone’s dignity, we build the kind of safety no authoritarian movement can ever take from any us.
We don’t need stronger walls. We need stronger solidarity. Because that’s the only real shield that works.
Definition: Conversation Collapse
Conversation collapse refers to the breakdown of meaningful discussion when any criticism or inquiry into harm, injustice, or abuse is immediately reframed as an attack on identity, safety, or existence itself.
As the conversation collapses, space for accountability disappears. One side hardens into unconditional defense, rejecting any discussion of harm. The other drifts into radicalized hostility, collapsing policies into identity and fueling new forms of bigotry.
In the vacuum, both extremes grow stronger while the underlying harms continue unchecked.
Term introduced by Signal Fires, 2025.
Reference Notes
Crusader-era Christian persecution of Jews
During the Crusades, many Jewish communities in Europe were massacred or expelled by Christian crusaders on their way to the Holy Land (Jewish Insider, The Guardian, Haaretz, History Guild).
Christian theological roots fueling conflict
Early Christian leaders, including Justin Martyr, Melito of Sardis, and Augustine, taught that the Christian church had replaced the Jewish people as God’s chosen. This doctrine, known as supersessionism (or replacement theology), fueled centuries of antisemitism, laying the groundwork for systemic persecution and interfaith conflict that persists to this day. (Life in Messiah - “Overview of the History of Christian Antisemitism”, Wikipedia — Supersessionism)
Project Esther as modern instrument
Heritage Foundation’s Project Esther strategy actively characterizes criticism of Israel as antisemitism, while ignoring white nationalist antisemitism — criticized by outlets including Al Jazeera, The Forward, and Vox (Wikipedia).
Israeli government exploiting conversation collapse
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other officials have repeatedly labeled international criticism, including from the ICC, UN, and Human Rights Watch, as “antisemitic.” This framing is used to shut down debate and deflect accountability for actions like settlement expansion and civilian harm. It takes full advantage of the dynamics of conversation collapse. (PBS Newshour - “Not every criticism against Israel is antisemitic” - Israeli historian Tom Segev, Reuters - Netanyahu calls ICC probe “pure anti-Semitism”)
Silencing criticism via the Livingstone Formulation
This recognized tactic deflects genuine criticism of Israel by accusing the critic of bad faith antisemitism. Coined by sociologist David Hirsh and named after former London mayor Ken Livingstone, it describes how criticism is shut down not by addressing arguments, but by attacking the critic’s motives. (Wikipedia — Livingstone Formulation, Goldsmiths Research Repository (Hirsh 2010 original paper), Engage — Hirsh summary (archived blog post))