In the last few years we have seen an outbreak of Left-wing hatred of Israel joined by its twin, antisemitism. Hostility toward the Jews has been around since Abraham but why so much in recent days in the West? When I was teaching at a large secular university in the 1980s hostility toward Israel was common then, but now it’s almost universal. Marches attacking the Jews and defending their enemies is the norm on campus and it gets worse the more elite the school. Claiming the Holocaust was a hoax circulates freely among Israel’s enemies. One called it the “holohoax.”
But why? The Jews have always been hated because of their successes as the modern world defines success. They seem to rise to the top in every occupation be it medicine, law, music, science, business, and finance. So the unsuccessful Left—and the Left is collective failure by definition—hates Israel and by proxy the Jews. Israel is hated for its military successes—since 1947 they have won every war with their neighboring enemies.
But the great irony is that Israel is by far the Middle East’s most successful outlet of Western, Christian culture. It is a working democracy that practices the rule of law, human rights, the sanctity of life, personal freedom, and the other values we associate with the West. How strange. Israel is hated for, well, being Christian.