9 REASONS WHY JEWS ARE ALONE

WHERE ARE THE ALLIES? POLLS SAY PEOPLE EMPATHISE WITH JEWS AND ISRAEL. WHY AREN’T THEY STANDING UP?

When have mobs ever been wrong? (Especially about Jews.)

If you judged by attendance at “pro-Palestine” and pro-Israel rallies in Canada and around the world, you would think there is almost complete unanimity in support of the Palestinians and against the Israelis.

Millions march worldwide (and riot, vandalize, intimidate, disrupt and terrorize) ostensibly for Palestinians. (For the millionth time, to understand why I put “pro-Palestinian” in quote marks and to understand how the people who call themselves that are among the Palestinians’ worst enemies, read this.)

Rallies in support of Israel, like the weekly one in my city, garner a core group of dedicated die-hards, almost all of them Jews. Enraged protests and marches against Israel draw exponentially more participants, only a small proportion of them Palestinian.

And yet opinion surveys in Western countries indicate that attitudes are well balanced. Canadians, Americans, Europeans and others tend to wish good things for both sides, or align with one side or the other only by small margins.

I can tell you based on decades as a non-Jew embedded in Canada’s Jewish community and (under one of my other hats) mobilizing non-Jewish Canadians to stand against antisemitism and anti-Zionism, precious few people seem willing to do so much as come out on a weekend afternoon to show solidarity with Jews and Israelis.

What’s going on? Why are the people who (think they) are supporting Palestinians motivated to show up en masse while those who support Israel and Jews remain at home, silent or nearly so?

I’ll deal in a future post with the attraction Palestinianism has for a certain category of people. In this post, I’ll focus on what might be happening on our side.

I won’t pretend I have any empirical proof. These are theories. If you’ve got ideas to add, please do contribute them in the comments.

1. Powerful/Powerless Dynamic — Current race theory (as well as just some aspects of human striving for justice) encourages people to side with the powerless against the powerful. That’s a good thing. But the narratives around Jews, in Western and Muslim civilizations, have tended to invert the real power situation. Jews, even at their most powerless, have been accused in society after society of being secretly powerful — of surreptitiously controlling the economy, the weather, pandemics, and every other inexplicable event. Today, of course, Israel is powerful — if it weren’t powerful, it wouldn’t exist and its citizens would probably all be dead. That last bit doesn’t concern folks who hate anyone with power. The flip-side, however, is simply not true. The idea of powerless Palestinians is a dehumanizing, disempowering falsehood. Palestinians have power. Their leaders and their ostensible allies across the Arab and Muslim world are the only ones who have the power to make peace because, for 76 years, they have been the only ones making war. This fundamental truth inverts the power dynamic. But the inevitable response — wait for it — is almost always, Well, if someone came in and stole your home, what would you do? (Answer: Leaving aside the false premise that Jews “stole” the land that archeology, history and common sense indicates is Jewish indigenous territory, I would find a way to coexist rather than inculcate in my children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren a desire to “martyr” themselves in an endless civilizational death-battle. But that’s just me.)

2. The Prevalence of Prejudice — The mantra that “anti-Zionism is not antisemitism” is ludicrous, unprogressive and false. (I’ve dispatched that silly idea succinctly here, here and elsewhere.) But, somewhat different from most forms of bigotry, antisemitism is like an iceberg. Much of the prejudice is hidden in the subconscious of the perpetrator. It is deeply subliminal, often unconscious, and rarely looks the same as other forms of prejudice and discrimination. Therefore, people who consider themselves antiracist can actually be racist toward Jews without even knowing it (although it does require a degree of overt denial to so aggressively deny it after being called out, as happens so often today). Examples follow.

3. Ideas of Jewish Power — Even if you do not consciously hold racist ideas toward Jews, a ton of stereotypes and tropes are inherited through our civilizational DNA. Ask almost anyone if Jews are powerful and the answer — even from avowed antiracists — will be a range of affirmative responses. The problem here (I shouldn’t need to point out) is that any formulation based on the idea that xyz group is abc is prima facie racist. Powerful or influential individuals are just that. We do not extrapolate from the success of Oprah Winfrey or Barack Obama that “Blacks are powerful.”

4. Jews as Monolith — It is a tenet of antisemitism that Jews are not individuals, but a monolith which, by extension, are seen as a Borg-like entity bent on [insert your particular obsession here]. This is demonstrated most inhumanely in the creepy formulation (intended, presumably, to be admiration) that six million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust, but the Jews survived. Well, six million didn’t survive. They were individuals. In the contemporary setting, we see a Jew murdered and we think (maybe not consciously, because what I’m talking about here are subconscious prejudices!), The Jews will be fine. No need to get alarmed.

5. “Persecution Complex” — Absolutely central to antisemitism is the idea that Jews are always crying wolf. Nowhere is the dismissive, dangerous idea that victims are falsely claiming victimhood more prevalent than in the case of Jews and antisemitism. Not only does this allow us to ignore Jewish concerns about rising antisemitism, the more Jewish people express concerns about it, the more we are reassured they are making it all up.

6. Victim-Blaming — Every form of racism involves a degree of victim-blaming. If x group would stop doing or being y, we wouldn’t have to hate them. This is magnified in antisemitism.

7. Antisemitism is not necessarily “anti” — The illustrations I have used so far are overwhelmingly examples of unconscious (or largely unconscious) biases. These are usually not manifested by people declaring Jews! I hate ’em. It is a far more subtle and complex network of prejudices, which allows the people who carry them to easily deny they carry them. (This is especially infuriating when people build their antiracist identities on “doing the work” and “unlearning racism” but, when it comes to Jews, announce, “Nothing to address here.”) This problem is exacerbated by the very term “antisemitism.” Very often, you can hold ideas and manifest behaviors that are “antisemitic” while insisting — and rightly — that you are not actively “anti” anything (because your bigotry is unconscious). It’s a big problem.

8. Double-Edged Stereotypes of Jews — A lot of stereotypes that underpin my theory are unconscious and could be double-edged. For example, people think they are the opposite of antisemitic when they say, for example, “Jews are clever/resourceful/resilient.” But these “positive” prejudices have a way of coming around and biting Jews in the ass. “Clever” can become “devious.” “Resourceful” can become “manipulative.” “Resilient” can become “can’t-beat-em-at-their-own-game.” Therefore, often the very people who think they are positively disposed to Jews may actually harbor negative mirror prejudices. Ugh.

9. Jews as “Manipulative” — Hand-in-hand with the “Jewish power” motif (#1) is the racist stereotype of Jews as manipulative. (How did they get powerful? By manipulating people and events!) Jews are routinely accused of manipulating their history of oppression to justify Israeli bad deeds. I’ve never understood this logic — probably because it is completely irrational. We were oppressed, so we get to oppress others. This doesn’t make any sense. How would that even work? Which tells me that this is the product of distorted minds — it is not Jews deliberately manipulating history, but antisemites imagining a distortion that isn’t taking place. In any event, a prevailing idea in attacking Jews and Israel is the idea that they are devious manipulators so, for example, the Oslo Process collapsed not because Arafat resorted to his comfortable old blanket of terrorism, but because the Palestinians never stood a fair chance negotiating with those devious Jews. (See “Victim-blaming, #6.)

Antisemitism is probably the “perfect prejudice.” Its very characteristics reinforce it. We say Jews are experiencing racism and others respond: They always say that. Well, what did they do to deserve it? I’m not anti-Semitic! I love the powerful, manipulative Jews! Etc. etc.

The point here is that there are inherent characteristics in antisemitism that makes it almost undefeatable.

That doesn’t mean we can give up the fight. No, we need to change strategy, recognize the playing field, and respond effectively to the reality.

That’s what I’ll be doing in 2025. Thanks for hanging in.