There are no Self-Hating Jews

As protests and opposition groups against Israel have become more prevalent in recent years so too has the presence of Jews within them. Noam Chomsky and Norman Finkelstein are too of the world’s most famous anti-Israel academics while in Britain the Politician Gerald Kaufman, the Comedian Alexi Sale and the activists of ‘Jews for Justice’ and ‘Independent Jewish’ voices are all Jewish figures committed to condemning Israel. And Israel itself has produced several key academics who at the very least denounce the Zionist project. Bewildered by these individuals the Jewish community tends to label them ‘self-haters’, yet in reality they are anything but.

In there own defence these people insist that as human beings and specifically as Jews (observing the high level of morality Judaism demands of them) they must speak out in defence of the venerable and oppressed. And indeed they should. Yet the latest independent population estimates suggest that there are less than three million Palestinian Arabs living in the Gaza strip and West Bank. This relatively small group of people has countless international NGOs, U.N bodies and foreign governments that champion their cause and send significantly large amounts of money to assist them, unfortunately much of it never benefits the people its intended for because of Palestinian Authority corruption, mismanagement and the tendency to funnel finances into terror. With all of these people concentrating on assisting this relatively small group of people along with the international media’s heavy criticism of Israel, are Jews really needed to join in? And if they really do feel so very heavily moved by their conscience to help the worlds needy then what of the people of Darfur, Tibet, Yugoslavia, Zimbabwe as well as countless other oppressed groups across the Middle East, not to mention its minority Jewish populations? Why of all the oppressed people of the world have these Jews decided that first and foremost it is the cause of the Palestinians that they should champion against their own fellow Jews living in Israel?

It quickly becomes apparent that these people are clearly disinterested in the plight of other Jews and more concerned with the cause of a group that are attacking their coreligionists. In doing so they essentially set themselves apart from their Jewish brethren who are under attack from the world and side with these very same critics. They undertake an act that dissociates themselves from the attacked group and places them amidst the dominant group, safely out of harms way they hope. So it is possible to see how far from hating themselves for being Jewish their act is one of self cherishing, they become applauded and seemingly accepted by the non-Jewish anti-Israel host populations, who are only too pleased to wheel them out at their protests and functions to demonstrate that being anti-Israel can’t possibly be anti-Semitic because there are Jews that are also anti-Israel.

Anti-Zionist Jews reject claims that they are betraying their own people, rather they retort that Zionism is a threat to all Jews because of how it increases anti-Semitism (as they see it) and so are always eager to use every opportunity to voice the fact that they are Jewish (albeit often openly ashamed of being so) but still opposed to Israel. This they hope will break the connection non-Jewish society sees between Israel and their Diaspora communities, so they hope sparing them the hatred Israeli Jews face. From the very beginning of anti-Zionist Jewish thought fears of anti-Semitism were the driving force. When the British government made its Balfour declaration in 1917, giving its support to the creation of a Jewish national home as a haven for East European Jews fleeing bloody pogroms, the assimilated and socially ambitious British Jewish elites wrote a letter condemning this, fearing that it would threaten their privileged position by calling into question their loyalty to Britain. Indeed their first thought was not the well being of the East European Jewish masses. Similarly the Reform Jews of Germany were also initially strongly opposed to Zionism as the Reform movement there had the primary aim of achieving social acceptance by becoming as German as possible. Nothing has really changed since then, anti-Zionist Jews still claim Israel stirs up anti-Semitism and fear that being Jewish and therefore associated with Israel will jeopardise their own ambitious assent into non-Jewish society. These Jews are after all on the whole very much estranged from Judaism, attending the major anti-Israel rallies always held on the Jewish Sabbath and so while they eagerly claim to speak as Jews they are in reality simply the descendents of Jewish ancestors.

To this some may point to the loudly anti-Zionist Ultra-Orthodox groups, who are not assimilated or divorced from Jewish practice and culture. Yet they represent a tiny radical fringe, often presented as official Orthodox voices by Israel’s opponents. Their radical anti-Secular ideology and obscure reading of certain Jewish texts has made them aggressively anti-Israel, but they too focus a great deal on how Israel represents a rebellion against non-Jewish rulers, so antagonising hatred against the Jewish people, which they argue is forbidden by Jewish law. While anti-Israel groups may place a great deal of emphasis on these people they represent such a minor radical sect that they can’t really be taken into overall consideration.

Ironically assimilated and secular Jews who have little relationship or sense of connection to the land of Israel and the Jewish people actually regain part of that strong relationship by attacking those very things. Reading up on Israeli history, obsessing over Zionist ideology and sometimes reading up on relevant sections of Jewish theology becomes one of the few Jewish things they do. And it’s as though if they can’t have a positive relationship with these things then they can’t simply accept them, they must instead work to destroy them, so re-justifying their own lack of involvement and adherence to them. So the assimilated Jewish critic of Israel can say ‘no I’m not religiously observant, no I don’t make the effort to visit Israel or help its people, but that’s not because I’m a bad Jew, it’s because I categorically reject these things on moral grounds’.

To defend Israel, to adopt greater Jewish observances becomes the more difficult thing to do when these people who enjoy all the benefits of assimilation realise it might set them apart from their much admired fellow non-Jews, from whom they desire ultimate acceptance. Instead the easier thing to do is to abandon and attack their own in the hope that it will demonstrate the full extent of their loyalty to non-Jewish society’s beliefs, opinions and values.

This isn’t about Self-Hatred but a self love that is so all consuming that individuals are prepared to put from mind the suffering of what are essentially their own people so as to advance their personal standing and sense of moral superiority and justification. Their worst fear is that they will be recognised as Jews, associated with Israel and suffer the same fierce criticism Israel receives from non-Jews.
They are like the slightly different child in the school playground that fears being picked on by bullies so ensures that they’re at the forefront of the gang, beating up another child that’s different so as to ensure that they’re not the one on the receiving end.