The Antisemitic Paradox

Antisemitism has never been consistent; that is its power. Jews have been cast as both inferior and superior, crafty and foolish, subservient and domineering, rootless cosmopolitans and clannish tribalists. These contradictions aren’t mistakes. They’re projections. Societies resolve their own fears by assigning both sides of the paradox to Jews.

In Christian Europe, Jews were blamed as Christ-killers yet accused of greed as moneylenders. In the Islamic world, they were humiliated as dhimmis yet feared as disloyal. In modern politics, the far right accused them of inventing communism, while the far left accused them of running capitalism. The same people could be Bolsheviks and Rothschilds at once.

Today these paradoxes are projected onto the State of Israel. It is accused of being both too weak (dependent on America) and too strong (a colonial oppressor). Both victim (survivor of wars and terror) and aggressor (charged with genocide for defending itself). Both Western outpost and alien theocracy.

The lesson is clear: the paradox is the continuity. Israel is not hated for what it is, but for what others need it to symbolize. That is why Israel’s existence is non-negotiable. It is the refusal to remain the screen for other people’s contradictions.