Sunday 15 August 2010

The Psycho-Analysis Of Self-Hating Jews

There is a not unusual, but extremely dangerous and harmful psychological (and some suspect, genetic) disorder among some members of the Jewish faith, known as Self-Hating Syndrome. Adam Levick at CifWatch has written a comprehensive piece looking into this phenomenon; the nature and causes of this disorder.
I'm not even being tongue-in-cheek here. Having now read a few articles about the phenomenon, I've seen just how fascinating it is to really look at it as a psychological disorder, and see how obvious it is that these self-hating Jews have serious issues. I've always just dismissed them as a bunch of weirdos, cowards who want to "fit in" with the West's majority leftist ideology, but there's so much more to it than that. I would love to see a qualified psychologist's take on it. And then watch a self-hating Jew's face as the psychologist gravely informs him of his disorder.
Levick observes, referring specifically to the Guardian's resident self-hating Jews, that:

"These Jewish writers don’t merely critique Israeli policy, but routinely engage in hyperbole, vitriol, and gross distortions.  Their rhetoric is often spewed with hate towards the Jewish state, all but ignoring the behavior of her enemies - the terrorist and reactionary movements who openly seek her annihilation.  Such commentators often infer that the democratic Jewish state (the most progressive nation, by far, in the region) is almost always in the wrong, is usually motivated by a hideous malevolence, and represents a national  movement which they, as Jews, are ashamed to be associated with."

Obviously these Jews are a very different breed to those who criticise Israel's mistakes out of care for the country. Similarly, whilst many people do give legitimate criticism of Israel, antisemites (and self-hating Jews) will express disproportionate hate towards Israel, whilst calling themselves anti-Zionists. They'll accuse Israel of crimes it didn't commit, whilst ignoring those crimes that have been done on larger scales by other nations. They'll deny Israel it's right to self-defence and existence, when every other nation has that right.

These are antisemitic Jews, though Levick finds the term "self-hating" misleading, because they actually "seem to possess a belief that they are indeed 'better Jews' for being hyper-critical of Israel, opposing their own community, and rejecting the very idea of a Jewish nation-state." Their desire to be seen as "progressive" means they move further away from identification with Israel and with the Jewish community. Levick then refers to a piece by Anthony Julius on Z Word, observing that these Jews possess "moral vanity", to assure the rest of the world of their righteousness:

"A moraliser has a good conscience and is satisfied by his own self-righteousness. He is not a self-hater; he is enfolded in self-admiration."
This is expanded on by Barry Rubin, who explains that the root of these Jews' desire to assimilate - by removing themselves from the communal interests of Israel and the Jewish religion - and to be seen as "alturistic", is plain and simple: fear. "While antisemites charge that all or almost all Jews in positions of power pursue a distinctively Jewish interest, the exact opposite is the truth". Which is why so many left-wing Jews try to prove themselves by "championing the causes of other groups even - sometimes especially - those in conflict with Jewish interests... [whilst] they hold the exact opposite attitude towards their own people, whom they are determined to show are not their own people".

It's a defence mechanism, as commenter Mitnaged puts it: 

"he is stuck in the paranoid-schizoid phase as described by Melanie Klein and is psychologically split. This stems from persecutory anxiety and the only way he can feel good about himself is by splitting off the parts of himself he sees as 'bad' and disowning them, and projecting them onto others at whom he can then point and believe himself to be 'all good'."
So really, self-hating is an accurate term to define them, in that they don't literally hate themselves, but hate the religion, Israel which is associated with it, and Jews who hold different views to them. Afraid of who they are; ashamed of their religion, people and country, self-hating Jews are proud to distance themselves from it, seeking acceptance from the Jews' enemies. Self-hating Jews will only ever be open about their Jewish status when in the same breath they distance themselves from all things Jewish.

Levick's final explanation for the phenomenon is that these Jews are really just overgrown adolescents, going through an intellectual and existential crisis; questioning the knowledge they've been taught growing up, believing themselves to be wiser than those who taught them. Julius at Z Word explains:

"He holds that the truth is to be arrived at by inverting the 'us = good' and 'other = bad' binarism. He finds virtue in opposing his own community; he takes the other point of view. He writes counter-histories of his own people. It is not enough for him to disagree, or even refute; he must expose the worst bad faith, the most ignoble motives, the grossest crimes. He must discredit."

Canadian writer David Solway, also on CifWatch compares today's self-hating Jews to century-old antisemitism, accusing Israel of "indiscriminately shedding [Palestinian] blood to feed its appetite for conquest and spoliation" as opposed to the ancient antisemitic blood libels, fabricating that Jews murdered Christian or Muslim children for religious rituals.

Solway explains that the self-hating phenomenon is a result of antisemitism, which causes "the insecure and self-doubting Jewish soul to turn about and attack itself, like an immune system gone awry." Solway depicts "a scorpion, trapped in a ring of fire, [which] coils up with the heat and appears to sting itself with its own lethal tail." This is a metaphor for self-haters:

"surrounded by the flames of enmity, misprision and commination, the self-reviling Jew shrivels back upon himself, the autonomic convulsion of an ailing and enervated soul."

Most tragically of all, Solway observes how the self-hating Jew ends up:

"doing the work of his tormentors as if in agreement with their salvos of defilement and vilification... [he] becomes the antisemite's loyal deputy, assuming liability for the world's mortal caricature of him and willing his own eclipse."

So to sum up, self-hating Jews are cowardly but smug, childish and stupid, hypocritical traitors. With psychological disorders.

On the subject of leftism and Israel, about a month ago there was an article on why leftists should be pro-Israel. Of course most leftists are actually very anti-Israel, most of them hypocrites who hold double standards when it comes to Israel.

No comments:

Post a Comment