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Anti-Semitism Is the Religion of People Too Lazy to Accept the Complexity of Reality

(Atlantic) Eliot A. Cohen - Like some malignant virus, anti-Semitism, or, to speak more plainly, Jew-hatred, never dies. It always lies dormant, ready to wake. In the wake of the Holocaust, the deliberate killing of Jewish, non-Israeli civilians is usually condemned across the political spectrum (butcheries of Israeli civilians being often excused as an understandable expression of Palestinian frustration). But those are easy sentiments, because it costs nothing to sympathize with dead Jews as opposed to standing up for live ones. In the United States, anti-Semitism has taken many forms - whether it is nominally respectable professors insisting that a vast Israel Lobby controls American foreign policy, or clueless congressional representatives accusing American Jews of dual loyalties, or others speculating about diabolical financiers dominating the 2018 midterms. In each case, the unique feature of this kind of Jew-hatred is the wild, aggrieved indignation that results when it is called out or rebuked. The essence of anti-Semitism is a confession of weakness and fear, a belief in occult forces that explain why you or your group has failed in some way. Anti-Semitism is, in short, the religion of people too lazy to accept the complexity of reality, who hunger for enemies whose power excuses their own deficiencies, and who cannot take responsibility for why their side has not won. It is a creed for losers. For some period of time after the Holocaust, open Jew-hatred went into retreat. That has changed. In the form of Israel-hatred - to include a denial of that state's right to exist, a complete disregard of the threats it has faced, and simple lies about what it has done - it is now acceptable in many places. In 2017, the FBI recorded more than three times as many anti-Jewish as anti-Muslim religious hate incidents, or almost 60% of the total. What is particularly scary now is that Jew-hatred seems to bring with it no real penalties. In the end, this is less of a problem for the Jews than for everybody else. The Jews are used to their enemies, and against all odds have survived them. So it will be now as well. But the resurgent anti-Semitism tells us that our societies are more troubled than we think. The writer is Professor of Strategic Studies at Johns Hopkins University.
2019-03-08 00:00:00
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