Mick Hartley

At Fathom, Adam Gregerman puts forward a series of parallels between historical views of Jews and contemporary views of Israel, in an attempt to explain the particular venom now aimed at Israeli determination to survive in the Middle East against enemies openly proclaiming their exterminationist aims. 

Briefly…

First parallel: Jews/Israel as the apex of evil:

Christians long held irrational and fantastical beliefs about Jewish malevolence toward them. Some saw Jews not just as holding hostile attitudes toward Christians. They were accused of martyring Christians; of murdering Christian children; of poisoning wells; of spreading disease; of desecrating ritual objects; and of covertly undermining Christian and later secular Western societies in which they lived. They were falsely accused of the most dreadful acts one could imagine, threatening their lives and their deepest religious convictions. These tropes rested on terrible assumptions about Jewish motives, that, if given the chance, Jews wanted to do (and sometimes successfully did) awful things against Christians.

Likewise, some accuse Israel today not just of bad policies and of transgressing legal and moral norms. Rather, accusations of malevolence are ratcheted up to the highest possible level. For example, after tragic combat situations that led to the deaths of innocents, Israelis have regularly been accused of intentionally committing murder. Food shortages in Gaza, rightly deserving attention and redress, are said to be a deliberate Israeli policy to starve civilians amongst whom Hamas hides. There is an oft-heard claim that dreadful acts with deadly results, sometimes caused by Israelis’ unacceptable carelessness and even negligence, are in fact intended outcomes. This attributes an inhuman level of deliberate malevolence to Israelis and to Israeli policy, far beyond that attributed to other Western militaries implicated in the tragic deaths of innocents. (For example, I do not recall anyone saying American military bombings in Afghanistan of wedding halls or children walking in the street were intentional murder.)

Similarly, accusations of genocide have been brought against Israel regularly in the United Nations (starting in 1982), in internationals tribunals, and by organisations (​eg. The World Conference against Racism in 2001). This claim—naturally recalling the Shoah—constitutes what Francesca Albanese, the highly controversial U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, characterised as ‘the crime of crimes.’ The introduction of the most extreme terminology immediately forecloses dispassionate analysis according to conventional means of assessing state actions. In the face of such murderous evil, it seems almost absurd to ask for nuance and balance in a discussion of Israel’s military and political actions. The genocide charge signals a moral harm of the highest order, raising questions about the state’s legitimacy and not just the state’s policies.

Second parallel: Jews'/Israel's original sin is false theology/ideology:

While other religions and heresies provoked sometimes violent opposition, Judaism alone across the centuries was unique in its status as a present, even visceral manifestation of a supposed inversion of Christian values. Jews did not, of course, face unremitting hostility in all times and places, but antipathy toward Judaism was nearly constant, especially when Christians sought to define the boundaries of their communities by assuring that Jews fell outside them.

Likewise, modern critics of Israel claim that its ideological foundation is qualitatively different from that of other countries. The claim is that Zionism—Israel’s founding ideology of Jewish self-determination and sovereignty in the biblical homeland—is inherently racist and discriminatory and therefore without legitimacy.

Third parallel: Jews/Israeli as the ultimate interlopers

As unbelievers, [Jews] were to be scattered abroad from their biblical homeland, without political or military strength. They were to be kept weak and ruled by non-Jews, with the Jewish diaspora and powerlessness serving as vivid symbols of Christianity’s triumph over Judaism.

Likewise, the Jews of Israel have long been portrayed as interlopers, temporary residents of the region, and destined for (or deserving of) expulsion.

Not just Christianity's triumph over Judaism: the dhimmi status assigned to Jews living in Muslim countries was a mark of their inferior position under Islamic rule.

Fourth parallel: Jews/Israel reduced to symbols

[T]he issues raised by the Israel-Gaza conflict are often framed as claims about Israel but sometimes seem to reflect other disputes. Israel is a vessel for these disputes, serving as a symbol of that which is objectionable, outdated, immoral, or ambiguous. For example, as noted above, there is much discussion about Israel and colonialism. While some of this discussion engages substantively with Israel’s history, more often the dispute appears to provide an opportunity for rejecting colonialism itself. This makes sense given that most Western examples of colonialism are in the past, leaving few opportunities for residents of Western countries to confront contemporary colonialism. Israel can serve as the superlative, ongoing example of a terrible, historical injustice previously but not currently committed by non-Jews.

But worth reading in full…