February 13, 2024

Why do many Leftists hate Jews?

I am personally philosemitic and have been so since I was in my pre-teens. The church I was born into told me that the Jews were God's chosen people and that Israel was their God-given land.  And I believed that.  I am no longer religious but I still believe the Jews live in Israel as of right.  And I admire the success they have made of their return there.

I offer that context to explain why I have been a student of antisemitism for many years. Listening to antisemitc speech could not disturb me but it did seem curious that some people had such views.   So I in fact sought out antisemities in an effort to understand them.  I published my findings in Jewish journals. 

 

Ray, J.J. (1972) Is antisemitism a cognitive simplification? Some observations on Australian Neo-Nazis. Jewish J. Sociology 15, 207-213.

Ray, J.J. (1973) Antisemitic types in Australia. Patterns of Prejudice 7(1), 6-16.

And in an odd turn of events,  I did up until recently have a furiously antisemitic girlfriend

So I thinkI am in a good position to comment on the hate-filled Dawn Queva .

The first thing to note about her beliefs is that they are not the result of careful enquiry but instead contradict at many points the conclusions a spirit of sober enquiry would lead to.  And most antisemitic people speak similarly.  I have heard them many times.  The speakers concerned make no effort to offer careful proof of what they say.  They simply assert without proof a range of derogatory claims about Jews and Israel.

So from an academic viewpoint, there is nothing to argue about in what they say.  Their words are a performance, not a set of examinable claims.  They are empty assertions.

So where does the impetus for these statements come from?  It comes from one of the oldest human follies: The tendency to believe what you want to believe rather than what the evidence shows.  And that is a quintessential Leftist habit.  Leftists do it all the time.  They believe that things like rent-control are beneficial to tenants when all experience shows that rent control hurts tenants. Facts and evidence have no power to change their views.

And we see that Ms Queva comes from a Leftist environment  -- the BBC -- and that it took a lot of pressure for the Beeb to fire her.

But not all Leftists are antisemites as far as we can tell so there remains something to explain.  In answer, I think it is a matter of extremity.  Moderate Leftists retain enough reality contact not to respect all the wild claims about Jews.  They have enough balance to see that Jews are just people like us who happen to have a slightly different religious background.

So why do extreme Leftists hate Jews?  Easy.  Israel embodies all that Leftists hate.  It is prosperous and influential.  It is a top dog that sends its enemies packing with ease, not the underdog that Leftists favour. Israel is assertive instead of humble. It is the powerhouse of the near East. It is exactly  what Leftists want to tear down.  Israel's success negates all sympathy for it.  So Leftist protesters have turned out in their usual droves  with Israel being the new focus of their hate.  So that explains recent demonstrations etc.

But antisemitism existed long before the present State of Israel.  Whence that?

The answer is religious in two different forms.  The simple form is Muslim antisemitism.  In both the the Koran and the Hadiths, Mohammed attacked Jews.  So among Muslims, antisemitism  is simply pious.  They are following their prophet

Its a bit more complex among Christians.  For centuries Christians reviled Jews for killing Christ.   But they were also told in their Bibles that Jews were God's chosen people.  Problem:  How could they revile God's chosen people?  

There is only one way out of that.  They had to deny that Jews were descendants of the Israelites of the Bible. It was a matter of history that Jews WERE descendants of people who had fled Israel in Roman times but that did not matter.  All sorts of improbable stories were made up to give alternative and derogatory origins for the Jews. Ms Queva repeats  many of them.

And over the centuries those stories became embedded in the folk wisdom of "Christian" lands.  They were traditionally passed down among family and friends and are believed by many to this day.  They became part of the culture.  World War II discredited them to some extent but below the surface they were and are still believed, even among many Germans. And it is those stories that antisemites regurgitate to this day.  Their historicity does not matter to believers.  They WANT the stories to be true so they are believed without need of proof.  Assertions are enough.

Dawn Queva, a BBC scheduler, has been fired after sharing 'horrific' anti-Semitic social media posts

Ms Queva, 55, described the Holocaust as a 'holohoax', prompting calls for the BBC to take action

One post by Dawn Queva claimed that 'being JewISH has zero to do with ethnicity' and suggested Jews were from the 'Synagogue of Satan'

In the messages, she refers to 'AshkeNazis', a slur that is a play on 'Ashkenazi' – Jews who descend from those who lived in central or eastern Europe.

One message claims the Ashkenazi Jews are 'a bunch of subcontinental European melanin recessive CaucAsian japhetic AshkeNazi who have no None zero zilch blood connection to the land of Palestine or Israel historically'.

Another brands Jewish people an 'invader coloniser species'. Ms Queva also allegedly described white people as 'barbaric' and 'bloodthirsty'. In other posts, she referred to the UK as the 'UKKK' – a reference to the Ku Klux Klan.

Ms Queva, 55, a senior scheduler and playout planner for BBC Three, posted under the name Dawn Las Quevas-Allen. She previously worked in scheduling for A+E Networks, UKTV and Disney.

She doubled down on her remarks after they came to light, challenging her critics to 'come at me... my shoulders are broad'. 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13045017/BBC-Jews-invader-SACKED-dawn-queva.html

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