The Difference Between Excuses and Reasons for Jew-hatred

Since the Jews were in Egypt, there has been Jew-hatred. The entire time, the Jew-haters justified their hate with reasons that sounded reasonable to that generation.

Pharaoh said Jews would be a fifth column. Haman said Jews didn’t respect the King’s laws. Antiochus said the Jews refused to assimilate. Christians said Jews killed their god. Jews were accused of killing Gentiles, especially their children. Jews charged interest on loans. Jews lived apart. Jews tried to assimilate and take over nations. Jews represented capitalism. Jews represented communism. Jews were a subhuman race.

Practically no one said that they just hated Jews for no reason. They always had a reason. But later generations could easily see that each reason wasn’t a reason at all – it was an excuse to justify the hate.

In each case, the hate came first – and then the excuse.

At the time these things were happening, some Jews would believe the reasons were valid, and they would try to distance themselves from the “bad” Jews to ingratiate themselves with their oppressors. Hellenists, early Jewish Christians, the medieval apikorsim and minim, the German Reform movement, all sought to some extent to escape persecution as Jews by identifying with the antisemites of each era. To a large extent, they accepted as fact the criticisms of Jews and felt that they can escape that hatred by identifying with each era’s antisemites.

In this sense, the new antisemitism is indistinguishable from the many old versions.

People don’t hate Israel and Zionism because of Zionist philosophy or Israeli government actions. They hate Israel because it is Jewish. The many reasons they give to justify that hate is all ex post facto.  This was very obvious in the early days of Zionism through the rebirth of Israel, but in the wake of the Holocaust explicit Jew-hatred was no longer fashionable so it was replaced with hatred of the Jewish state, which remains today. The class of people who say they hate “occupation” hated Israel before 1967; the people who call it “colonialist” hated it before that word became an epithet.

Their reasons are excuses, and this is obvious because their hate doesn’t extend to other nations that have the same supposed traits.

Today, no one can seriously read the objections to a Jewish state given by Arab leaders before 1948 and think that they are anything but excuses for their desire to ethnically cleanse Jews from the region. No one can look at the history of Jews in Arab nations in the 20th century and believe that their leaders were really only against Zionism and not against Jews.

In a generation or two, the same will apply to today’s arguments against Israel – but they will be replaced by others.

The new antisemites are keen on separating Zionism and Israel from Jewishness. They want to hang onto their excuses and pretend that the reasons for their hate are legitimate. When one truly sees that today’s anti-Zionism is an elaborate fiction and nothing more than a new manifestation of the “oldest hatred,” it is easier to see how their arguments mirror those of the antisemites of old. Jews/Zionists have too much power! Jews/Zionists relish killing non-Jews! Jews/Zionists think they are better than everyone else! The world would be better off without Jews/Israel! It is a new label on a very, very old bottle.

Just as we’ve seen so often through history, there are plenty of Jews who are enthusiastically taking up the arguments of today’s antisemites. Jews who, like their Hellenist and Reform forebears, hope to not be the objects of today’s antisemitism by identifying with the new haters – and even surpassing them.

The new minim are as proud of their hate as the old ones were. They use their Jewish background to buttress their arguments against Jews as generations of Jewish converts to Christianity did. They generalize the actions of a few Jews to stereotype all the Jews of Israel in a classic display of pure bigotry and claim that they are anti-racist.

The hypocrisy that proves that their arguments are worthless doesn’t stop there. People who often have only the most tenuous connection to Jewishness pretend to define Jewishness. People who justify modern antisemitism pretend they can define antisemitism. People who are quick to justify violent riots by people they support are even quicker to condemn far less violent demonstrations by Jews.

The excuses for antisemitism have always morphed over time in relation with whatever is considered most offensive in every generation. The Holocaust didn’t end antisemitism – it merely prompted antisemites to come up with new justifications for the same hate, and Israel is the perfect target for that hate.

The antisemites always have reasons. You need to look at the history of antisemitism to realize that their justifications for their crazed, irrational hate are as grotesque as the excuses of their predecessors were.

{Reposted from the Elder of Ziyon website}