The West's original sin
Antisemitism is the West's original sin.
From Greece to Rome to Christianity, hatred of Jews has bound those of us in the West. The Jew is the Other. The Jew is the rootless cosmopolitan. The Jew is the monster under the bed.
When this posts, Israel will have been at war for three days, after the terrorist government of Hamas in the Gaza Strip launched an invasion of the state. And you can see the fellow travelers glorying in the "resistance." In New York, pro-Hamas goons marched to support the massacre of three hundred Israelis dancing at a rave.
One of my first posts at Spandan's site was defending Israel's right to exist. And a commenter opined that no state should be based on religion or ethnicity.
Oh, really? So, France and Germany should roll it up?
There are many calumnies against Jews. One of the most prominent is that European, Ashkenazi Jews are not "real" Semites, but in fact descended from Khazars who converted to Judaism. This is something which the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, parrots, along with denying the Holocaust. Of course, this is a lie. All genetics show that, yes, Ashkenazi Jews are Semitic.
Humans are roiled in conflict. But the one thing most people can agree on is a hatred of Jews. It's a common trait throughout history. Jews are the convenient scapegoats. Jews are the people everyone can agree are the source of all of society's ills.
And when Jews fight back? Well, they're the terrorists. They're the aggressors. They're the ones to blame. Everyone loved the Jews of the Holocaust. But when they dared said "never again", that got panties in a bunch.
Antisemitism is racism. Pure and simple. It is the original Western racism. In Visigothic Spain, every church council held until the Muslim conquest issued new draconian decrees against being Jewish. So please spare me bromides that "it's not Jews, it's Zionism". Every Jew in Israel, perforce, is a Zionist. So when you inveigh against Zionism, you're calling for the extermination of Jews in Israel. There's no way around that.
At any time from 1949 to 1967, Palestinians could have had a state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. But their fraternal Arab brothers didn't want that. Jordan and Egypt wanted that land for themselves, and use the "dispossessed" as a cudgel against Israel. Perhaps if Palestinians had established a state alongside Israel, an accommodation could have been reached. They would have had East Jerusalem as their capital, which is what they say they want. They were betrayed by their Arab "brothers" for political reasons. But all that is sent down the memory hole, in service of eternal victimhood.
I don't know what will get us past this. But what won't suffice is to cast Jews as the eternal enemy, and Palestinians as the eternal victim. There is more than enough blame to go around. But Hamas' attack has done it no favors. And the Arab world is not as monolithic in its hatred towards Israel as the Jew-haters wish you to believe.
This is a dark time. Be well, everyone.
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