18 Nov Latent vs. Blatant

“Is it better for hatred to be hidden or out-in-the-open?” – The Lonely Realist

Latent hatred is dangerous. Blatant hatred can be addressed … and resolved.

Humans have biases and they act on those biases, whether openly or surreptitiously. Prejudices are powerful drivers of human actions, sometimes intentionally and other times because of their latent emotional force. Those actions most often are directed against weaker groups, minorities that have fewer members and who accordingly are “different.” Human success and survival has favored tribal commonality that relies on numerical strength, rendering subgroups a natural target for subjugation and elimination. Notable modern minority targets have been Kurds, Uighurs, Rohingyas, Christians in Sudan, etc., etc., etc. … and now, once again, Jews. Being labeled as an “other,” whether in word or deed, often creates resentment that is a starting point for intolerance that can lead down a pernicious slope. Unless confronted and resolved, differentiation all-too-often spills over into viciousness, violence and, at the extreme, elimination. History is replete with ethnic, religious, racial, and tribal “cleansings.” Among the hatreds that were allowed to fester over the last century … with resulting “cleansings” … were the Jewish Holocaust, the Armenian Genocide, the Rwandan Genocide, the Killing Fields of Cambodia, the decades-long Darfur War, and a variety of mass murder sprees. Each provides a lesson in repetitive rationales, the study of which should serve to prevent 21^st Century recurrences, recalling the caution that those who fail to learn from history are destined to repeat it.

Biases are a human survival trait. Those who are not identifiable as family members, who cannot trace their ancestry to a common origin or set of beliefs, have been treated throughout human history as threats. It therefore is not surprising that nations, tribes and groups have viewed diversity as unnatural, a risk to the community and a menace to the comfortable commonality that “we all know and love.” Cultural, ethnic, racial and religious sameness feels better …, and that’s true even in diversity-embracing America, where Africans, South Americans, Irish, Italians, Eastern Europeans, Chinese, Muslims and “others” have faced (and continue to face) dehumanization rejection discrimination and where many tribalist Americans redline those who are not their definition of “us.” It is only when latent bias is broadcast that people recognize that there is a problem. They often react by seeking a remedy … or they embrace the prejudice. Before that recognition, bias builds behind closed doors. That explains today’s antisemitic resurgence, where latent anti-Jewish sentiment has suddenly exploded. Contrary to expectations, antisemitism’s millennia-long roots did not shrivel after the Holocaust’s extermination of 40% of the world’s Jews. In an effort to prevent a Holocaust repetition, the United Nations more than 70 years ago carved-out a homeland to shelter the world’s remaining Jewish population. That remedy may have been insufficient. The re-emergence of antisemitism evidences the same prejudices and the same genocidal message, with Hamas and its supporters calling for the elimination of Israel and its Jewish inhabitants: “There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad” states the Hamas charter. [ED NOTE: Jihadists are members of a death cult whose acts ensure an eternity in Paradise.] That charter is not a call to contest Zionism. It is a call to wage a religious war to eliminate Jews. Those who chant “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” may deny that they are joining a crusade to eliminate Jews …, but they are. Even though some undoubtedly do not understand the chant’s meaning, the majority understand that they are calling for an Islamic state without Jews. That chant and its meaning stand in sharp contrast to the words and actions of Israel, which has not suggested, let alone attempted, extermination of the Palestinian population in or surrounding Israel, despite claims by Rashida Tlaib (D MI) that the U.S. is supporting Israel’s “genocide of the Palestinian people.” To the contrary, Israel years ago withdrew from Gaza, the West Bank and southern Lebanon and ceded control of each to elected Palestinian authorities. If, as Representative Tlaib and her fellow Palestinian supporters have argued, Israel is seeking Palestinian genocide as well as an apartheid Jewish state, why did Israel withdraw from ancestral lands … and why are there Palestinians in the Knesset, on Israel’s Supreme Court, and staffing Israeli hospitals?

The surge in antisemitism is not limited to America and the Middle East. It is global, evidence that latent antisemitism has triggered an anti-Jewish tsunami. This rising tide of antisemitism is visible in the attempted firebombing of a synagogue in Berlin, the chants of “gas the Jews” in Sydney, the arson of a Jewish cemetery in Vienna, the >800 antisemitic incidents in France and the recent >1,300% increase in antisemitic events in London, and by college students all over the world tearing down posters of Israeli hostages taken by Hamas. Incidents in the EU reflect a multi-year global trend that is mirrored in the U.S., where the Anti-Defamation League recorded 751 antisemitic incidents in 2013 and >3,600 in 2022, more than in any year since it began recording incidents in 1979. The geopolitical realities are consistent, with Vladimir Putin and the Chinese media all openly throwing support behind Hamas and by Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s assertion that “Hamas is not a terrorist organization [but] a mujahedeen liberation group struggling to protect its people and lands [from an Israeli] terror state.”

Latent hatred cannot easily be addressed. Blatant hatred can be. French President Emmanuel Macron has determined to fight antisemitism by making it clear that, in France, the Western country with the largest Muslim population, “The Republic does not and will not compromise, and we will be ruthless against those who carry [antisemitic] hatred.” Genocidal Antisemitism is now out in the open. So are the facts for those seeking the moral high ground. Both are in sharp contrast to the pre-Holocaust 1930s. Future events will determine whether openness and transparency differentiate the outcome. If you’ve ever wondered what you would have done had you been a German citizen in November 1938 on the morning after Kristallnacht, October 7 now gives you that opportunity.

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Finally (from a good friend)