https://www.jns.org/opinion/defeating-the-danger-from-without/
It is sound practice to examine one’s own behavior before casting aspersions on that of others. But self-reflection in the Jewish context is all too often an exercise in directing accountability inward, rather than where it belongs: squarely on the shoulders of the people of Israel’s external enemies.
European Jews learned the hard way that their very existence—and the blood in their veins—was sufficient cause for all of them, from the visibly Orthodox to the utterly assimilated, to be systematically tortured and slaughtered. Tragically, it’s a lesson that American members of the tribe are now being forced to internalize and in which their counterparts in Paris, London and elsewhere on the Continent are being given a refresher course.
Anti-Semitism of the above type is foreign to native Israelis, especially the younger generation, despite contending daily with foes out to kill them for being Jews. In fact, even many Israelis whose families have been ripped apart by terrorist missiles, fire bombs, guns and machetes don’t recount having experienced anti-Semitism. Instead, they view themselves as victims of Arab/Palestinian terrorism; as though it were a separate phenomenon.
A minority of Israelis, some of whom have high positions in the government and an even higher number of whom hold seats in the Knesset, still cling to the notion that the cause of the hatred and ensuing violence is political. This bloc thus believes that the solution lies in diplomacy—Israeli territorial and other concessions whose ultimate goal is the creation of an independent Palestinian state.
Since all such efforts on Israel’s part have belied this idea, the weary majority has come to realize that the hostility is deep-seated, religious, ideological and not going anywhere in the near future. The divide between the two perspectives is not new in Jewish history or the annals of the Jewish state.
