Physician and pathologist argues anti-Israel political rhetoric masks antisemitism, drawing on medical metaphor

Eric Wargotz, MD — a pathologist, emeritus professor of pathology at George Washington University School of Medicine, and president of MedChi, the Maryland State Medical Society — published an opinion column in the Washington Examiner arguing that anti-Israel political rhetoric in the United States is not a distinct form of policy criticism but a contemporary manifestation of antisemitism.

The piece opens by citing New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani's public statement that he cannot support Israel as a Jewish state, which Wargotz described as "a dangerous strain of propaganda." He characterized recent primary election results, in which candidates running on anti-Israel platforms defeated long-serving incumbents, as evidence that this rhetoric has become "a potent reality in American structural politics."

Wargotz rejected the argument, common among progressive political leaders and activists, that hostility toward Israel is separable from antisemitism because it is grounded in foreign policy critique or humanitarian concern. He described this defense as "clinically absurd," drawing an analogy to a physician claiming an aggressive rash is unrelated to an underlying virus. He pointed to the Uppsala Conflict Data Program's tracking of other large-scale conflicts — including those in Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the Chinese occupation of Tibet — and argued that the absence of comparable international protest around those crises exposes a "glaring double standard."