Martin Zagnoev

Martin Zagnoevof of Johannesburg writes:

Beware that ‘toughness’ may actually create anti-Semitism

In order to be liked, someone might be overly pleasant to others. But this does not always work, especially when interacting with bullies. He might then get angry and hurt and go over to the other extreme.

He flips from one extreme to the other instead of remaining in the solid centre where he is neither a victim nor a fighter.

This reminds me of an aspect of Jewish history:

During the 19th century, many Jews thought t we were hated because we were so different, so we should reform our religion so as to become more acceptable to the gentile world. This led to the creation of “Progressive” Judaism.

Responding to further anti-Semitism, many then concluded that in order to achieve protection from this hatred, we needed our own state (Zionism) tough enough to ward of any threats. So, a new militant Jew was born, who would even take the fight to our enemies.

This led to the establishment of a successful and powerful state, against all the odds and in a very short time span. Israel was thus able to restore much pride in the Jewish people with her miraculous achievements. But there is a down side to this new-found toughness.

The political climate has changed since the emergence of Zionism. Jews are no longer third class citizens in most of the world.

The Church which spread so much anti-Semitism in the past, no longer demonises Jews; some of the churches now actively support Israel. In America the majority favour us and Germany usually supports Israel.

The tough Israeli may have lost some of the spiritual high ground of the people who taught the world to “love your neighbour”, as mentioned in the Torah and then copied by the New Testament.

The world does not usually realise that Israel feels compelled to adopt strong military action to ensure her survival. They’re not aware that the Israelis are vastly outnumbered by hostile Islamic militants who wish to destroy them. Nor do they realise that Israel takes these unpopular actions in the context of so much suffering in the past. All they see is the present fighting, where a powerful Israel often looks like the aggressor.

When Britain and the US conduct wars in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, they spend many resources on propaganda. They do things to assist the local populations so as to win hearts and minds.

I believe the Israeli army hardly bothers with this type of activity for two reasons: They want our enemies to know not to mess with us and they pessimistically believe that being nice won’t help.

Instead of trying to build bridges with the Arabs, they often destroy any possibility of goodwill. However, the continued conflict is not in Israel’s interest. Instead of protecting against anti-Semitism, this toughness sometimes creates anti-Semitism. It also provides our enemies with ammunition with which to criticise us.

Could we not offer the Arabs the carrot and the stick, not only the stick? Let’s make both peaceful overtures with them (but also strengthen the Israeli army, just in case).