The Pervasive Assault on Israel by Jews: Why Does this Hatred Persist?   

By Alex Grobman, PhD

The ubiquitous denigration, demonization and holding Israel to a double standard by those whom Daniel Greenfield calls “tenured academics, progressive journalists and irreligious clergy for whom Jewish values, like American values, mean appeasement and surrender to terrorists,” is an ongoing problem, although not a new one.

As early as May 1, 1936, Labor Zionist leader Berl Katznelson asked: “Is there another people on earth whose sons are so emotionally twisted that they consider everything their nation does despicable and hateful, while every murder, rape and robbery committed by their enemies fills their hearts with admiration and awe? As long as a Jewish child…can come to the land of Israel, and here catch the virus of self-hate…let not our conscience be still.”

In an article in Haaretz, attorney Uri Silber calls this phenomenon “the Jew Flu: the strange illness of Jewish anti-Semitism” and “its Jewish anti- and post-Zionist mutations, afflicting a small,” but very vociferous minority of Jews. “Those infected with the virus exaggerate Israeli sins real or imagined, while excusing or rationalizing Palestinian Arab anti-Semitism and outrages against Jews.”

Silber asks, is Jew Flu a genuine illness?  Michael Welner, a world-renowned forensic psychiatrist, who is Chairman of The Forensic Panel and Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, submits that Jewish anti-Semitism is like a personality disorder, enabling an individual to “derive some psychological benefit from this pathological thinking.”

What Motivates Jews to View Israel in Such a Negative Manner?

In his seminal work, “Trials of the Diaspora: A History of Anti-Semitism in England,” Anthony Julius, a prominent British solicitor and Jewish leader explains that anti-Zionist Jews profess “to speak as the moral conscience of the Jewish people,” because in their role of “scourges of the Jewish state,” the anti-Zionist Jew becomes a “moralizer,” an individual who publicly “prides himself on the ability to discern the good and the evil. The moralizer makes judgments on others, and profits by so doing; he puts himself on the right side of the fence. Moralizing provides the moralizer with recognition of his own existence and confirmation of his own value. A moralizer has a good conscience and is satisfied by his own self-righteousness.”

Sol Stern, a senior fellow with the Manhattan Institute, adds that these individuals have “decided to condition their belief in a Jewish national homeland on its pursuit of policies that make them feel good. They prefer an Israel of social-democratic fantasy—an Israel that need not take account of the behavior of its Palestinian interlocutors, that need not take account of the safety and security of its own population, and an Israel that need not take account of the views and wishes of its own electorate—to the real thing.”

Identification With the Aggressor

In response to a request from this author, Dr. Welner provides further insight into this aberrant behavior. He asserts that “the identification with the aggressor is the defense mechanism by which one adopts the perspective of one’s abuser. This defense mechanism is recognized more traditionally in scenarios such as the Stockholm syndrome and the reactions of captives. Yet many Jews who live in seeming freedom exhibit these very traits.

“Jewish self-hatred illustrates the convergence of the milieu of anti-Semitism’s influence in various specific subcultures, with the pathological need of some Jews to find favor in such cohorts. This explains why Jewish self-hatred is so pervasive within institutions to which belonging carries prestige. From campus groups with popular coeds to elite private colleges to social registries, to think tanks to insider punditry, to Israel’s Europhiles, cachet matters. To ambitious people such as many Jews are, that elite standing matters more to them than their own Jewishness. Rather than simply leaving the faith, or admitting to themselves the subtle but inhospitable Jew-contempt that permeates the club to which they betroth, the self-hating Jew identifies with the aggressor and adopts its resentment against Jewish interests in a craven effort to prove one’s bona fides.

“The self-hating Jew, or even the Jew-in-denial, deems this ‘enlightened’ to the other Jews who view his identification with the aggressor as ‘sick.’ But of course, because the self-hating Jew believes he has been given a seat at the table. Such is the personality disorder of this behavior, as the individual afflicted is always the last to know. Like vanity in general, the self-hating Jew’s ultimate denouement is the eventual cold recognition that neither a Christmas tree, a kufiyah scarf, a Syrian jihadist family sponsored nor donations to the UN lead the idealized in their social circle to relate to that Jew with any less visceral distaste.  This type of true anti-Semitism is intransigent.”

Last to Know How Much They Are Loathed

Dr. Welner continues, “The personality disordered individual is always the last to know how much they are loathed. Those who hate Jews on a granular level, such as the indoctrinated Palestinians and other Islamic supremacists, or the elitists whose forbears were pillaging Jews and have bigoted lineage, suffer different pathology. But those haters are clear eyed about their capacity to find a small pretext for their distaste, including the unctuous disingenuousness for which self-hating Jews are painfully famous.

“Jewish self-hatred is rendered more complex by the strategic alliance of certain Jews with elements they know to be hostile. They convince themselves that they can penetrate the irrationality in certain governments in particular. And they are sometimes right. Indeed, figures from Joseph to Queen Esther have set historic examples. Intellectuals such as Alan Dershowitz and political mega donors such as Haim Saban are often criticized; but their argument is well-taken. What would things be like if they were not bulwark against the antagonism toward Israel and its venal agenda against global Jewry?

“The key distinction is how the self-hating Jew uses affiliation to shed their Jewishness, while courageous travelers use their strengths to check the expression of the enemies of Jewry and often win begrudging respect. This dynamic presents no easy answers.”

How should we respond?

There is often a visceral desire to react to these self-righteous and self-appointed “moralizers” by calling them kapos, members of the Judenräte (Jewish councils) or some other highly offensive term. Aside from trivializing the Holocaust, they do not accurately describe the behavior of Jews vilifying the Jewish state.

Kapos were appointed by the SS to supervise prisoners or perform administrative duties. Failure to comply would have resulted either in harsh retribution or death. Some Jewish kapos were very cruel. After the war, a number were killed by their fellow inmates. Kapos faced life-and-death moral decisions, dilemmas that detractors of Israel fortunately do not have to confront.

Members of the Judenräte were viewed as Nazi collaborators for allegedly assisting in the murder of European Jewry. In his book “Judenrat: The Jewish Councils in Eastern Europe Under Nazi Occupation,” Isaiah Trunk, a leading Holocaust scholar and the chief archivist of YIVO, the Jewish Research Institute, concluded no general statement could be made either about the members involved, or their activities, motivation or culpability. The actions of each Jewish council and its members have to be examined separately.

A Final Word

The Jews described herein who malign Israel will continue to provide legitimacy to the assault against the Jewish state. Our response should be to fund organizations fighting against the delegitimization and prepare ourselves and our children with the knowledge to fight back.

Dr. Alex Grobman is the senior resident scholar at the John C. Danforth Society and a member of the Council of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East. He has an MA and PhD in contemporary Jewish history from The Hebrew university of Jerusalem. He lives in Jerusalem.