Ever since Hamas launched the largest single attack on Jews since the Holocaust, I have been thinking a lot about anti-Semitism. I have looked at the history of anti-Semitism because the question I have been asking myself with way too much frequency as of late is "Why do they hate us [Jews] so much?" There are 15 million Jews on the planet. Given the concentration of Jews, it is probable that most people on this planet have never met a Jew in their life.
As I was monitoring current events and the pro-Palestine protests in response to what is taking place in the Middle East, I noticed something about the nature of these protests. Aside from Muslim immigrants and Islamists, the other main participants in these protests are those on the Left, particularly the Far Left. It seems counterintuitive at first glance for the Far Left to having such a strong anti-Israel animus that it often translated into anti-Semitism. We can sidestep the Far Left's hypocrisy of addressing others' implicit bias without addressing its own implicit biases, or not-so-implicit biases, as the case is with Israel.
I had to write a separate, introductory piece on the topic of "anti-Semitism and the Far Left" earlier this month because I am astonished that the Far Left is choosing a genocidal terrorist organization over a democratic nation-state that was founded in response to the Holocaust, one of history's worst human rights abuses. To address this perplexity, I have created a list of six theories, some of which are overlapping, as to how so-called "progressives" could choose Jew-hatred over principles they purport to value. I present the first three into today's piece and will address the remaining three theories at another time.
1. The "Oppressor versus Oppressed" mentality and Israel. One of the aspects that frustrates me about the woke Weltanschauung is their highly reductionist way to look at the world. According to this framework, you are either the oppressor or the oppressed. While racism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, and other forms of bigotry have existed and continue to exist, viewing everything in such simplistic terms is intellectually lazy, an assault on truth and reality, and harmful to freedom and social cohesion. Yet this binary has become trendy both on the Far Left and to a lesser extent in the mainstream political Left, including critical race theory (see here and here). What happens when woke people apply this crude, sophomoric approach to something as complicated as the Middle East?
For the woke, Israel becomes the oppressor and Palestine becomes the oppressed because the Palestinians have done a fine job at presenting themselves as the oppressed. It explains how Black Lives Matters Grassroots stated "As a radical Black organization grounded in abolitionist ideals, we see clear parallels between Black and Palestinian people." For about the first twenty years of its existence, the modern state of Israel had strong international support because it was still seen as "the little guy." Once it won the Six-Day War in 1967, Israel showed the world it was no longer the little guy and made it clear that it was not going to be threatened by Arab nations that want to wipe out Israel. 1967 was also when Palestinian nationhood was created and seized the opportunity to position itself as the underdog. Identity politics evolved to the point of portraying Jews as the "powerful, privileged aggressor," what sociologist Erving Goffman characterized as a "spoiled identity."
Forget that being the underdog does not make you morally or factually correct. It surely was not the case for the Taliban or neo-Nazis. This facile approach of "oppressor versus oppressed" ignores Jewish history and the historical context of that region. It also means a morality that puts double standards on Jews while framing Hamas' actions against Israel as "justifiable resistance," which apparently includes excusing the kidnapping of Holocaust survivors, raping women, and decapitating babies.
If Israel targets Hamas' military targets, the problem, according to this logic, is not Hamas using Palestinian citizens as human shields, but Israel's supposed "aggression." Israel also has a practice of giving advanced warning of its attack because it wants to minimize civilian casualties. No other military in history has taken such precautions because it means losing element of surprise. Yet the Far Left construes that as "ethnic cleansing," in spite of the fact that evacuation is part of every war. With the Orwellian linguistic contortionism under the Far Left's "oppressor/oppressed" framework, what they believe is that Israel can do no right, whereas Hamas and the Palestinians can do no wrong. It is the international relations version of the soft bigotry of low expectations. By accepting the inverse of the regressive worldview it purports to fight, the "social justice warriors" become the mirror image of what they hate.
2. There are those on the Far Left who perceive Jews as white. This is partially an extension of the previous argument about "oppressor versus oppressed." It has become fashionable for many on the Far Left to be racist against white people and/or view whiteness as a secular form of Original Sin. Going back to a previous point, there are some that conflate whiteness with oppression. In this mindset, being white is worst than the lowest rung on the ladder of victimhood; it is downright pejorative. What does that have to do with Jews? To quote the British magazine Spiked, "From the identitarians' perspective, Jews symbolize a great evil because they are supposed beneficiaries of white privilege. Jews' relative success in American society has purportedly come about at the expense of people of color. According to this pernicious view, Jews play a key role in America's systemic oppression of black people."
It is peculiar to argue that Jews are white given that racial anti-Semitism has historically been based on the premise that Jews are not white, but rather an inferior race separate from mainstream society. Yes, most American Jews are Ashkenazi, which is to say of European descent and have white skin. However, on a global level, there are Jews of all sorts of ethnicities: Middle Eastern, Indian, Ethiopian, Chinese, and Latino (Lewin-Epstein and Cohen, 2018). I even have a Japanese-Jewish friend I met ages ago. The "Jews are white" argument ignores all the oppression that Jews faced in America, especially in the early- and mid-20th century. It also ignores that almost every Israeli Jew is no more than two generations away from an attempt from a government in Europe, the Middle East, or Africa to murder or expel them.
If the uptick in anti-Semitism in the past few weeks is a reminder, it is that skin color or educational attainment are insufficient determinants as to whether Jews are discriminated against. If you do not think so, why don't you ask gay or disabled people, or even conservatives or libertarians who try to express their ideas on a college campus?
A problem with Jews in the context of woke thought is that they do not neatly fit in the woke Left's simplistic understanding of intersectionality or white privilege. It seems inconceivable for many on the Far Left that American Jews, most of whom are White, could possibly face discrimination. I would know. I am a Caucasian with a Catholic upbringing and Protestants on my father's side and I converted to Judaism in my early adult years. I have dealt with people who have viewed me in a more negative light finding out that I am Jewish. Trust me, there is a difference! Rather than apply some critical thinking or nuance to the topic, it is simpler for the Far Left to inaccurately categorize Jews as white.
3. The Far Left resents Israel's success. Prior to the creation of the modern state of Israel, that land was a backwater of the Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans scarcely invested in infrastructure or modifying the area. That changed with the creation of the state of Israel. What was once considered the boondocks became a democratic society with a prosperous economy that is comparable to other OECD nations.
This is a problem because the politics of envy play a prominent role in the Far Left’s worldview. It goes back to Karl Marx's claim that profit could only happen because of exploitation. Plus, those on the Left are more likely to believe that outcomes are due to factors beyond one's control (Schlenker et al., 2012). For those on the [Far] Left, it is inconceivable that Israel could have become successful through effort, grit, and determination. The Far Left's animus towards success even explains the FTC's recent attack on Amazon.
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