The phenomenon of anti-Israel Jews has always surprised me, and I tended to explain it in terms of Stockholm syndrome, rebellion against parental authority, etc. But its prevalence lately, as shown by Zombie’s photo essay on the recent appearance of Jimmy Carter in Berkeley, is making me think more in terms of some form of mass psychosis.
Zombie noted that most of the demonstrators did not appear to be connected with the university, and
It seemed, in fact, that the demonstration was more of a silent staring match between rival Jewish ideological camps: anti-Israel Jews (generally self-identified as “left-wing”) versus pro-Israel Jews (commonly though to my mind often inaccurately identified as “right-wing”).
Whatever is wrong with these people, it’s not just a few Chomskyite crazies anymore. A good friend of mine, who has been involved in pro-Israel advocacy for many years, recently told me “I’ve had it with the Jews. They’re not helpful. The real support for Israel today comes from Christians.”
I have to laugh when I read antisemitic commentary about how the Jewish Zionists work together systematically pulling the strings that cause world governments to tilt toward Israel’s interests. No string pulled by a Jew is likely to cause anything, because for sure there will be another Jew pulling in the opposite direction. Compare this to the almost unanimous position among Arabs and Muslims, even if they can’t agree on anything else, that there should not be a Jewish state in the Middle East.
Although arguments between Jews about Zionism have been going on among Jews since before the time of Herzl. Today with our enemies stooping to unimaginable depths of depravity, it’s even more depressing than usual.
The growth in anti- Israeli sentiment on the part of the Jews has come at a time when the ‘adversaries’ of the Jews seem even more fanatical anti- democratic, inhumane and cruel than ever before. It thus seems especially ‘illogical’.
It comes as a form of alliance between the Radical Left which these Jews are a part of, and the fundamentalist Islamic Right which logically these Jews should most strongly oppose.
It comes too I would want to suggest from a misreading of Jewish history and identity. For these Leftist Jews is to be a Jew is to be a Victim and Oppressed, although they themselves are not oppressed physically.
This briefly said, I am not happy with my own formulation here.
The researches of Kenneth Levin, Manfred Gerstenfeld, and a host of others are worth exploring here.