The acceptable hatred of Jews
There’s something deeply disturbing about the act of prejudice.
At its heart, to exhibit ‘prejudice’ is to judge a situation or person before possessing facts and, as such, it is a behaviour which is both irrational and repugnant.
Fortunately, in most cases, prejudice can be redressed and minimised. The evidence of the past 50 years is that, confronted with education and familiarity, far fewer people now hold prejudicial views based on race – and those who still do are no longer socially enabled in that behaviour and can even be appealed to to abandon such views in the face of reason.
As a result, there is now a greater degree of understanding, between races, and a pronounced social desire to further that understanding and ensure that all people feel safe, valued and able to live their lives as they wish to.
Except for the Jews.
Unlike all other forms of racial prejudice, antisemitism – the form of hatred reserved uniquely for Jews – is impervious to education and pays little regard to facts. To antisemites, ‘facts’ are an irritating and inconvenient distraction which, rather than giving them cause to examine their views, simply force them to move on to new slogans and justifications for their hatred in a monstrous and perverse form of antisemitic whack-a-mole.
We’ve seen this playing out over the past few months as pro-Hamas groups, anti-Israel activists and the partisan media have either changed their antisemitic narrative in the wake of new evidence to dispel their claims – or simply ignored such evidence and continued to chant their discredited mantras.
Why? Because unlike other forms of prejudice where the goal is to ‘separate’ people based on race and ethnicity – the goal of antisemitism is to eliminate the Jewish people altogether – and only by understanding this can you fully understand their actions. As such, those who peddle in antisemitism are judge, jury and executioner and have already decided that the Jews are guilty because their crime is not really any of the things that they stand accused of, but rather that of simply existing.
The implications of this are huge and concerning and 2,000 years of history have taught the Jews that no amount of appeasement will ever be enough to change this. If they support the establishment of a Jewish State, they will simply further empower an enemy already bent on their destruction. If they abandoned Israel to the barbarians they would just be pursued into whatever nations they fled to. No concession would ever be enough.
Which is why they must stand their ground and protect themselves and their ancient homeland.
But we in the west have a role to play, too – and that role starts with recognising that antisemitism is not like other forms of prejudice and can’t be countered in the same way. Initiatives designed to ‘educate’ antisemites will be of limited value as their hatred is not rational or fact based.
Our primary efforts should be focused, instead, on limiting their numbers – and the best way to do that is to demonstrate ours. The only thing that has kept antisemitism in check since the close of World War 2 has been the sheer weight of western support for the Jews and the unpopularity of the antisemitic cause and therein lies the key to what you can personally do to help.
The reaction of decent people to the expression of antisemitic views should be one of revulsion. When a relative or colleague expresses such a view, respond to it as you would if they had shared an offensive joke.
Likewise, when you encounter social media comments which promote hatred of the Jews – publicly inform the author that he or she is being blocked, then block them. Any act of tolerance is acceptance.
We need to make clear that antisemitic views are not acceptable and that those who hold them are going to be stigmatised by society.
And that starts with you.
Ashley Church is a director of the Israel Institute of New Zealand
