Jew-Hatred The Suicidal Passion

Last week we tweeted this fine essay by Ruth R. Wisse on the suicidal nature of Jew-Hatred. Since then, we have reread the essay and consider it so wise and articulate that we want to make sure all our readers have a chance to read it.

History demonstrates, that, without exception, when a society scapegoats Jews those societies inevitably fail.

The Arab world is one huge epic failure. Europe is in the midst—here we go again—of scapegoating Jews, this time via Israel, by appeasing their intolerant, sharia-yearning Muslim populations. At this rate, France and England will be Judenrein in about 25 years with frightened Jewish citizens moving to Israel and America. There are now entire apartment blocks in Jerusalem that have been purchased by European Jews who see the handwriting on the wall.

Goodbye Europe, hello Eurabia.

Anti-Semitism, or the organization of politics against the Jews, is at once the most protean and the most misunderstood force in modern politics. Because it works through misdirection, most people associate it with Jews who are its target, rather than with anti-Semites who are its perpetrators. But whether aimed at the Jews in their dispersion or in their homeland, anti-Semitism and its offshoot anti-Zionism are about the Jews only in the way that fox hunting is about foxes. Those who organize their hunt around the fox consider it the best animal to hunt. Important as it may be to identify those features in the swift little animal that make it the chosen target of those giving chase, any analysis of fox hunting must concentrate on the hunters—their motivations, strategies, implements, goals, and perceived gains. Fox hunting stops when there is a change in hunters, not in foxes. So, too, with anti-Semitism. Only changes in the implicated countries can arrest the political process their leadership promotes.

In the current political climate, it hardly matters whether one is among the prosecutors or defenders of Israel, as long as Israel is in the dock. Many well-meaning people fail to appreciate that the prosecution prevails once it makes Israel the defendant. Some ask naively, “But aren’t we allowed to criticize Israel?” or even boast that Israel is being held to a “higher standard,” ignoring that the war against the Jews is won by charging them with the crimes being committed against them. The point of the “trial” is to keep Jews at its center.

Snip!

Yet the early benefits of organizing politics against the Jews are inevitably outweighed by the ruin that overtakes its practitioners. Why inevitably? Because anti-Semitism attributes real problems to a phony cause. Putting off problems tends to compound them.

Snip!

Strategies of blame may temporarily camouflage corruption, channel dissatisfaction, and redirect aggression, but societies that resort to them collapse under the weight of their negativity. Palestinians – once considered the ablest Arabs – are now in strong competition with Germans of the last century in the sweepstakes of self-destruction.

Please read the complete essay at The Weekly Standard.