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Anti-Zionism and Antisemitism have much in common with QAnon: both are evidence-free hatreds.
- 06 October 2021
- 9:04 pm
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- 06 October 2021
- 9:04 pm
The American Jewish Committee says “Antisemitic conspiracy theories about Jewish elites, globalists, and bankers are part and parcel of the QAnon belief system, and George Soros and the Rothschilds are consistent targets. The use of children in the conspiracy—the need to rescue children from the hands of the powerful globalists—harkens back to medieval blood libel accusations against Jews.” (Photo: ajc.org)
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Growing up, most kids on my street were petrified of the Oxford Street Gang. We knew not to venture through the passageway between the two apartment buildings that connected our street to theirs. It was, of course, all right to walk around the block and go up Oxford Street. That was safe…but not the passageway.
It was a real fear. Nobody, however, ever saw a member of the Oxford Street Gang. No one was ever injured by this powerful group of thugs. We attributed this state of safety to the fact that none of us ventured through the forbidden passageway.
There was no evidence for the existence of the Oxford Street Gang. In fact, the absence of evidence was taken as testimony to their all-powerful nature: they could strike without leaving a mark. That belief in the power of the Oxford Street Gang was, of course, the boogeyman phenomenon. It formed part of our belief structure growing up and we acted on that conviction by avoiding that perilous passageway.
The boogeyman exists in many cultures today. It’s found, for example, in QAnon ideology. That view holds that Liberal elites in general, and U.S. Democrats in particular, are engaged in worldwide trafficking of children for sexual purposes. With QAnon ideology we have entered an “evidence free” zone. There is no evidence for this belief.
Yet QAnon has become a powerful feature of the American conceptual landscape with several adherents elected to Congress and some of its members participating in the January 6th insurrection. Others invaded a Washington DC pizzeria to release children who they thought were being abused, the pizzeria menu serving as code for specific sexual preferences. The absence of children there was not taken to invalidate QAnon ideology. Members simply agreed that it must be some other pizzeria where the children were being held. That salvaged the belief. In the topsy-turvy world of these conspiracy theorists, absence of evidence counts as evidence.
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The boogeyman phenomenon represents an irrational fear but is easily believed and acted upon.
Israel and Jew-hatred are boogeyman manifestations. It sets up the Jew as the fearful entity. According to Jew-haters, Jews control the banking system and world politics. “The Jew” is pictured as hostile to one’s interests — without any evidence — and so the myth becomes believable. It also sets up the Jewish nation, “Israel,” as a boogeyman.
According to Israel-haters, this tiny nation of less than 10 million people is the cause of most of the world’s problems. Both the Jew and the nation-state of Israel assume the form of gigantic mythical creatures in the imaginations of Jew-haters. These hateful individuals become obsessed with Israel and Jews in general as many social media postings reveal. Like QAnon, Israel-hating has the power to easily sweep up various causes in its wake.
Part One examined the oldest record of Jew-hatred, namely Psalm 2. Composed 25-30 centuries ago it was a liturgical song that was chanted at the coronation of the Davidic king in Jerusalem. It focused on the strategies anti-Zionists and antisemites use in their quest to eradicate the Jewish state and put Jews down. Division was the first weapon of Israel-haters, dividing the Jewish people internally and separating them externally from others within the general population.
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Weapon #2: Delusion
Delusion is the second weapon in the Jew and Israel-hater’s arsenal. Delusion represents a powerful weapon: its mythology becomes believable, its adherents convinced that they and they alone are right and it becomes highly contagious.
The song-writer of Psalm 2 calls the Israel-hatred delusion “emptiness.” Another translation might be “meaningless.” The charges may hurt – they are designed to – but, ultimately, they are just hot air. They are devoid of truth. So while they hit home with Jews and many Christian Zionists, these baseless charges are delusional. Like QAnon beliefs, Israel-hatred reflects a mental disturbance, a distortion of reality.
QAnon members looked to “Q” who would drop “breadcrumbs” anonymously from time to time. These cryptic sayings were open to many interpretations. But they were nonsense, statements empty of meaning. The breadcrumbs of antisemites reflect the same nonsense with delusional evidence-free propositions.
What does “from the River to the Sea….” mean? That anti-Israel slogan is an empty chant. It’s pure fantasy. It expresses the desire for ethnic cleansing, the complete eradication of Israel and the Jewish people from the country. Where are Israelis supposed to go? Are they just to be mysteriously annihilated?
This popular protest slogan is meaningless verbiage. Israelis packing up their bags and leaving the land they have inhabited for centuries is not going to happen. It’s magical thinking at its worst. Moreover, the sentiments reflected in this chant do not advance any resolution of the complex issues facing Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. While the ritual of chanting slogans might make the protesters feel good, and offend reasonable people everywhere, the proposition is, as the psalmist, declared “empty.”
Howard Dean, the former Democrat Party Governor of the far-left state of Vermont parroted the progressive political mantra “Israel is an apartheid state” on Twitter, mindlessly repeating a blood libel against the Jewish nation. (Image: Twitter)
What does “Israel is an apartheid nation” mean? Where are the pockets of subjugated peoples living in separate disadvantaged areas? Israeli Arabs, Muslims and Christians alike, are citizens of Israel. They can vote and participate in Israeli society. They are represented in the Knesset. They have education, can go to university, and have places of worship. The arrangements may not be perfect but it is far better than what Christians and Jews experience in any Muslim country. How many synagogues are there in Gaza, for instance, or in Egypt, or Saudi Arabia or Jordan? How many Christian churches?
A better example of an apartheid nation would be Canada, with over 600 separate areas for its Indigenous Peoples. They are called “reservations.” While some First Nations in Canada are self-sufficient, others lack basic housing, education, health care and clean drinking water. Reservations for the Indigenous – separate living areas – that’s apartheid. Where are the global anti-Canadian protests? World-wide boycotts of Canadian goods and services?
What does “Israel is a colonial nation” mean? If it means, as it seems to suggest, that Jews are newcomers to the land, then that claim is historically false. Jews have inhabited the land for close to 4000 years. Arabs came later, as colonizers, in the 7th century CE. For several centuries Christian crusaders from Europe tried to drive the foreign occupiers out of the “holy land” but that bloody endeavour failed.
During the time of the Ottoman Empire, Jews and Arabs coexisted on into modern times when the British, French and ultimately the United Nations attempted to create a two-state solution, one Jewish and one Muslim, Israel and Jordan. So, no, Jews are not recent settlers. They did not just move into the land after the Holocaust and the expulsion from Arab lands – that’s a complete distortion of the historical record. Jews are, in fact, the Indigenous people of the land.
Intersectionalism urges its adherents to support countries and causes that would actually harm their supporters if they were to step foot in these places; tragic because it ignores the one country – Israel – where these minorities can flourish. Indoctrinated by their woke educators, Jewish students at Xavier University put their self-hate on parade at Black Lives Matter rallies. (Photo: File)
Intersectionalism: A Delusional Ideology
These slogans and others like them are reinforced by the recent ideology of intersectionalism.
This ideology holds that all victim causes are linked. This means that an individual signing on to help ameliorate the plight of Blacks or LGBTQ individuals is also agreeing to a package of causes. This enriched basket also includes, it turns out, being anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian.
The ideology of intersectionalism is delusional. For one thing, the choice of fellow victim movements is highly selective. This unmasks the true intent of intersectionalism which is to bash Israel and Jews in general.
The intersectionalist identification is not with minorities in Arab and Muslim countries, e.g. Christians, Jews, Bahai’s, Gays, Lesbians, liberated Women and others who are often persecuted, imprisoned or killed in those countries. The irony here is absolutely tragic: intersectionalism urges its adherents to support countries and causes that would actually harm their supporters if they were to step foot in these places. It is also tragic because it ignores the one country – Israel – where these minorities can flourish.
Nor is the intersectionalist identification with Kurds or Yazidis in the Middle East nor with the Uighurs in China. There are no massive protests against China, Iran, Iraq or Syria which are the real oppressors of these peoples. There’s no boycott of goods from these countries. No riots in the streets. No loud voices raised. No outrage.
Nor does the Israel-hatred of Green Party Environmentalism make any sense. Israel is a leader in innovative environmental technology, turning deserts into productive farms and extracting water from the air. This leading-edge science stands out in marked contrast to protesters in Gaza who light incendiary devices to burn down Israeli forests.
Only Israel merits attention. That extreme selectivity blows the cover: selective intersectionality is simply a mask for Israel and Jew-hatred.
So intersectionalism is delusional in the sense that it does not unite all victim causes into one giant movement. It is a highly selective weapon and it forces adherents into Jew-hatred.
It is also delusional in the sense that it is a self-defeating position. Protesting against Israel does not advance the cause for which the activist is primarily committed. In fact, it undermines it. How does solving the Middle East map – an undertaking requiring years of detailed investigation – make the world in any way better for Blacks, Transgendered Individuals, Environmentalists or Women?
The zenith of intersectional delusion was exemplified by the kind of logic that led the fringe Marxists at Jewish Voice for Peace to declare “Zionism is antisemitism”. (Photo: Twitter)
Why Believe Delusions?
Psalm 2 starts with a “why” – why are the nations of the world so concerned with tiny Israel and its new government? Why do they entertain such empty concerns?
Put into a modern context we may very well ask, why are delusional beliefs believed? Why are people so willing to mouth slogans that have no meaning? Propositions for which there is no evidence?
More importantly, what psychological need is being satisfied by antisemitism rants and chants? What’s the benefit to the antisemite for being antisemitic?
Jew-hatred is based on fear — fear of “the Jew.” This is, of course, not the real Jew but the mythical Jew constructed in the imaginations of antisemites as boogeymen. Jews, it is alleged by Jew and Israel-haters, have all the money. They control the media, the entertainment industry, the banks and financial institutions. They steer the course of government. They are a secret cabal that controls world events. They dominate the world.
All these sentiments testify to the protesters’ belief that the mythical Jew and the mythical nation-state are all powerful. All this in the face of recent world history where, alone of all the peoples of the world, Jews witnessed the decimation of its community by one-third and the destruction of all its European and Arab education, religious and medical infrastructures.
Jew-hatred is based on fear of “the Jew”- not the real Jew, but the mythical Jew constructed in the imaginations of antisemites as boogeymen. Nowadays, to avoid being outed immediately as antisemites, the perpetrators in Universities cloak their venom as simple “anti-Zionism”. (Image: File)
Because Israel and Jew-hatred are irrational fears, facts and evidence do not sway the minds of antisemites. Showing protesters how Israel represents a democratic, multicultural country in which Gays, Lesbians, Women, Muslims, Hindus, Christians and Jews have citizenship simply does not make a dent in their delusional armour. A brief history lesson on how the Jews are the Indigenous People of the land versus the Arab colonialist invaders also doesn’t change opinion. Showing how the Protocols of the Elders of Zion are a fraud is useless.
Unfortunately the recital of facts does not change irrational fear. Knowing history may shield Jews from being seduced by these haters, but it does not change the minds of those so deluded.
Israel-hatred is based on fear and the slogans are empty, as Psalm 2 puts it, devoid of meaning. It is not a rational position. The words are masks for an underlying emotion: the desire to hurt Jews. That’s their rationale: to cause pain. Israel-hatred is an irrational fear but it appeals to those with a malevolent instinct to harm Jews.
That they do, but they also delude themselves.
Delusion is self-destructive. Intersectionalists are Israel-obsessed. By focusing on Israel and the Jews, they are taken away from developing creative solutions to the progressive causes to which they were primarily drawn, a better and more environmentally friendly world for Blacks, Gays, Lesbians, Transgendered individuals, Women and others. It is a dangerous diversion, for the hated and for the haters.
What’s the solution for delusion? If not facts, then what?
Perhaps just ridicule. The propositions of Israel-haters don’t merit discussion, just derision – “Surely you can’t be serious.”
An award-winning educator, Barrie Wilson, PhD, is Professor Emeritus & Senior Scholar, Humanities/Religious Studies, York University, Toronto. A Jewish investigative historian, he specializes in movements in early Christianity. Books include: How Jesus Became Christian (2008); The Lost Gospel (2014) co-authored with Emmy-award winning Canadian-Israeli film director and producer Simcha Jacobovici; Paul vs James (2018); Searching for the Messiah (2020).
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Happy reading!
Thank you for choosing TheJ.Ca as your source for Canadian Jewish News.
We do news differently!
Our positioning as a Zionist News Media platform sets us apart from the rest. While other Canadian Jewish media are advocating increasingly biased progressive political and social agendas, TheJ.Ca is providing more and more readers with a welcome alternative and an ideological home.
We revealed the incursion of anti-Israel progressive elements such as IfNotNow into our communities. We have exposed the distorted hateful agenda of the “progressive” left political radicals who brought Linda Sarsour to our cities, and we were first to report on many disturbing incidents of Nazi-based hate towards Jews across Canada.
But we can’t do it alone. We need your HELP!
Our ability to thrive and grow in 2020 and beyond depends on the generosity of committed readers and supporters like you.
Monthly support is a great way to help us sustain our operations. We greatly appreciate any contributions you can make to support Jewish Journalism.
We thank you for your ongoing support.
Happy reading!
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