Antisemitism is being normalized in America as free speech

 

ByDR. OMAR MOHAMMED  I’ve seen what hate does to a society with my own eyes in Mosul, Iraq, my hometown.

When ISIS took over, I began secretly documenting their atrocities under the name Mosul Eye. I watched as my neighbors became enemies, as public spaces turned into execution grounds, and as fear seeped into every aspect of life.

Extremism didn’t arrive with guns and black flags. It first crept in as whispers in sermons, then as slogans, and eventually as checkpoints, arrests, and executions. By the time the world called it what it was—terrorism—it was too late.

But that’s how hate works. It doesn’t begin with violence; it starts with the normalization of dangerous ideas—ideas categorized by many as “opinions.” And we’re seeing that same pattern now in the United States.

But what happens when that “opinion” denies the humanity of an entire people? When it rewrites their history, questions their identity, or suggests they don’t have a right to exist? What happens when that opinion becomes a slogan, then a movement, and then a firebomb thrown at a synagogue?

In May, two Israeli diplomats were shot outside Washington, DC’s Capital Jewish Museum. Their attacker claimed he acted in solidarity with Gaza. A few weeks later, a Holocaust survivor sustained fatal injuries during a terror attack in Boulder, Colorado, when a man with Molotov cocktails attacked a peaceful march for Israeli hostages. In both cases, the suspects didn’t see themselves as extremists. They thought they were standing for something righteous.

And that’s the danger. Because the line between opinion and extremism is thinner than people want to admit. Antisemitism adapts; it speaks the language of justice, of culture, of protest. And when no one challenges it, it becomes accepted, and then eventually deadly.

What scares me most is not only the attacks themselves, but the way people still hesitate to name them. Even after fatalities, they ask, “Was it antisemitic?” They look for context, nuance, and reasons not to call it what it is. Antisemitism. Racism.

Awareness isn’t enough. We need clarity, education, and serious training, especially in law enforcement. Officers who patrol synagogues, monitor public events, and review threats must be trained to recognize antisemitism as it exists now. Not just the obvious swastikas and slurs, but the coded hashtags, the dog whistles, the ideological tropes dressed as “activism.” If they can’t recognize it early, they won’t be able to prevent it when it escalates.

Some US states are beginning to respond. In recent months, several law enforcement agencies launched training programs to help officers recognize modern forms of antisemitism. These efforts—some conducted in partnership with the Program on Extremism at The George Washington University—focus on identifying how antisemitic rhetoric is coded, adapted, and embedded in digital spaces, public discourse, and protest culture. The threat is not always obvious; sometimes it hides behind academic language or seemingly benign slogans.

These trainings must become the norm, not the exception, because antisemitism isn’t another viewpoint or edgy critique. It’s a form of hate that corrodes truth, trust, and democracy itself.

To brush it off as “an opinion” is to ignore history. And history tells us that when antisemitism is tolerated, it spreads.

If we wait and keep debating its definition while people are killed, while synagogues need armed guards, while students are harassed on campus, we won’t just be failing the Jewish community. We’ll be failing our shared sense of humanity.

Antisemitism must be recognized, named, and addressed—not when it erupts, but when it starts whispering. Because by the time it’s obvious, it’s already everywhere. And then it’s not an opinion, it’s a regime.

Dr. Omar Mohammed is the director of the Antisemitism Research Initiative within the Program on Extremism at George Washington University. Mohammed hosts the podcast series “Mosul an

Antisemitism is clearly rising. But the danger is in how people respond to it—or rather, how they don’t. They say, “It’s not extremism, it’s just criticism” or “It’s not hate, it’s free speech.”