It has been the same here these past couple of months with the fighting in Gaza. Only the air has been charred not with devastation but with hatred. And I don’t mean the hatred of the warring parties for each other. I mean the hatred of Israel expressed in our streets, on our campuses, in our newspapers, on our radios and televisions, and now in our theatres.
But I am not allowed to ascribe any of this to anti-Semitism. It is, I am assured, “criticism” of Israel, pure and simple. In the matter of Israel and the Palestinians this country has been heading towards a dictatorship of the one-minded for a long time; we seem now to have attained it. Deviate a fraction of a moral millimetre from the prevailing othodoxy and you are either not listened to or you are jeered at and abused, your reading of history trashed, your humanity itself called into question. I don’t say that self-pityingly. As always with dictatorships of the mind, the worst harmed are not the ones not listened to, but the ones not listening.
Berating Jews with their own history, disinheriting them of pity, as though pity is negotiable or has a sell-by date, is the latest species of Holocaust denial, infinitely more subtle than the David Irving version with its clunking body counts and quibbles over gas-chamber capability and chimney sizes. Instead of saying the Holocaust didn’t happen, the modern sophisticated denier accepts the event in all its terrible enormity, only to accuse the Jews of trying to profit from it, either in the form of moral blackmail or downright territorial theft. According to this thinking, the Jews have betrayed the Holocaust and become unworthy of it, the true heirs to their suffering being the Palestinians. Thus, here and there throughout the world this year, Holocaust day was temporarily annulled or boycotted on account of Gaza, dead Jews being found guilty of the sins of live ones.
Mr. Jacobson, I think it’s even simpler:
They hate you for being successful.
The Crowd always sides with the underdog. (They want to believe that they can be whatever they want to be, and powerful people losing when they should win suggests this psychology is correct.)
Israel was OK with the left and the undifferentiated crowd when they were victims that the crowd could help… but now that Israel is a successful nation, they’re the oppressors.
It’s simple: they hate you for being successful and not being a victim with no options… a victim like Palestine… a victim like them.
So, let’s see. Does siding with the underdog explain all criticism of Israel and of Jews? Historically speaking we can conclude that is not the case, since no one could accused the Nazis of siding with the underdog, nor does the older history of repetitive pogroms against the Jews throughout the world seem explainable by siding with an underdog of any kind. However the recent upsurge in anti-Jewish and especially anti-Israeli feeling (which Mr Jacobson feels are always one and the same thing) is certainly based on flawed thinking.
The Left used to be relied upon to support the Jews as underdogs, but now, as Jacobson says, is “disinheriting them of pity, as though pity is negotiable or has a sell-by date”. Jacobson is upset then that the Jews are not held as being the ultimate pitiable underdog for all time. That shows that he doesn’t feel it helps his people to be viewed as being strong or successful. The second flawed reason for the sudden upswing in anti-Jewish/Israel feeling is that they are blamed by many for the financial crisis. So that means people are upset because they have lost money. Again that is a pathetic motivation for hating Jews – resentful and materialist. The Israelis want it both ways – to be perceived as the underdog while also acting as oppressors. When you observe in your comment that they are the oppressors you infuriate them. Logically, the worst thing you can say to them is that they are seen as being successful as a nation – so I hope you now realise that makes you a fully fledged “anti-semite” when you attempt to offer such compliments!
This entry should be deleted. It seems purposely misleading and quite convoluted.
Your title is far too general and suggests that any criticism of Israel is veiled anti-Semitism. Your post goes on to address only current criticism of Israel regarding the occupation of Gaza, a very specific criticism of Israel. Would criticizing Israel for dumping toxins into the ocean also be anti-Semitism? Your title certainly suggests that it would.
On top of that, your comments completely contradict your title. How does criticism of Israel for being successful equate to racial/religious/cultural bias? Are you suggesting that their race/religion/culture have something to do with their success? If not, you have failed to make any connection between the current criticism of Israel and anti-Semitism.
Perhaps you meant the title to be “Criticism of Israel is not velied anti-Semitism?” You are correct in that the Left’s criticism of Israel over Gaza is just a herd of sheep bleating, “Hey man, that’s not cool!” However, in its current incarnation, this post reeks of nothing short than propaganda.