Fair is fair. When it comes to publicity, to verbiage, to shaping world opinion, to swaying college campuses, to harvesting votes at the United Nations, Iran, the Palestinians, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis run rings around the Israelis in particular and the Jews in general.
This is a puzzle. The Jews are the “People of the Book,” a phrase that connotes learning, intelligence, creativity. Relative to their numbers, they are wildly overrepresented in literature, fiction, film, theater, philosophy — every craft devoted to persuading an audience. By every measure of talent and training, this is a contest they ought to win walking away. Instead, in the war of words that surrounds the shooting war, they are being routed.
What does their handiwork look like? Consider the evidence.
DO JEWISH LEADERS REALLY PREFER AN ANTISEMITE OVER ISRAELI OFFICIAL?
Exhibit A: By Oct. 8, 2023, and arguably on the night of the seventh itself, while the dead were still being counted, masses of university students were already blaming Israel. Israel! For the slaughter of its own people. This was no fringe of obscure community colleges, either. Harvard, Columbia, Berkeley, the commanding heights of the intellectual establishment, all swarmed with very bright young people marching against the victims.
Exhibit B: The U.N. has condemned Israel for misconduct more often than every other nation combined, and then some. If that doesn’t beat all, nothing will.
Exhibit C: The recent mayoral election in New York City. Zohran Mamdani, a fierce critic of Zionism, was swept into office, carried even by Jews under 40. That is a feat of eloquence that cannot be waved away. He has plenty of company. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), the latter being floated as a presidential contender, draw adoring crowds while sharing a low opinion of the Jewish state.
Exhibit D: Look at what’s going on in Toronto. We say no more.
Exhibit E: Even at the level of raw name-calling, the so-called Palestinians and their friends reign supreme. (Supreme, mind you, not supremacist. Supremacist is a wicked thing, and by the going rules it applies only to Jews.) You will not find language more pithy than the Great Satan and the Little Satan. What is the rejoinder? The Medium-Sized Satan?
Exhibit F: Then there is the territory the press insists on calling the West Bank. Its proper name is Judea and Samaria, a fact that has somehow escaped the entire profession of journalism.
How might Israel fight back in this war of nomenclature? They are forever the Zionist Entity. Why not return the favor: the Iranian Entity? And that strip of Lebanon south of the Litani River seems to need a new name. New Northern Israel has a certain ring to it. These marauders ought to learn the one lesson that sticks: Start a fight with Israel, and you go home with less land than you began with.
One of the reasons for the Jewish loss in the area of verbiage is that quite a few Jews themselves are on the other side. The most famous one of all is perhaps Sanders, a U.S. senator. But there are others:
Isaac Asimov, science fiction author. Hannah Arendt, political theorist. Roseanne Barr, comedian. Anna Baltzer, activist. Daniel Barenboim, musician and conductor. Peter Beinart, writer. Max Blumenthal, journalist. Judith Butler, philosopher. Noam Chomsky, linguist and political writer. Ben Cohen, of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. Marek Edelman, resistance leader. Albert Einstein, physicist. Hedy Epstein, Jewish Holocaust survivor. Richard Falk, law scholar and former U.N. rapporteur. Norman Finkelstein, political scientist. Sigmund Freud, psychoanalyst. Erich Fromm, social psychologist. Jerry Greenfield, of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. Naomi Klein, writer and activist. Primo Levi, Jewish writer and Holocaust survivor. Gideon Levy, journalist. Miriam Margolyes, actress. Aaron Maté, journalist. Gabor Maté, physician. Hajo Meyer, Jewish Holocaust survivor. Miko Peled, writer and activist. Ilan Pappé, historian. Jacob Schiff, financier. George Soros, financier and philanthropist. Michael Steinhardt, billionaire investor. I.F. Stone, journalist. Marcy Winograd, activist.
Then there’s the large number of Jews associated with these organizations; same story: American Council for Judaism. European Jews for a Just Peace. Independent Jewish Voices. IfNotNow. J Street. Jewish Anti-Zionist Network. Jewish Council of Australia. Jewish Voice for Peace. Jews for Justice for Palestinians. Neturei Karta. South African Jews for a Free Palestine. Tzedek. UJFP.
WHY SELF-HATRED LARGELY AFFLICTS JEWS: SEMITIC STOCKHOLM SYNDROME
Notice, there is not a single rabbi mentioned herein. The number of Reform rabbis who belong here would be far too long, and this would include all too many such leaders of the Jewish faith from the Orthodox and conservative groups as well.
It is a wonder that the Jews are doing as well as they are in the publicity sweepstakes with all of these members of the group on the other side.
Walter E. Block is the Harold E. Wirth eminent scholar endowed chairman and professor of economics at Loyola University New Orleans. Oded Kohn Faran holds degrees in law from Sha’arei Mishpat College in Israel. He is the general director of Faran & Co. International Translations and lives in Tbilisi, Georgia.