Anti-Semitism and Arab Terrorism

By Prof. Paul Eidelberg - July 2001

Few people have grasped the dynamics of anti-Semitism as well as Vladimir Jabotinsky. His understanding of Nazi anti-Semitism applies to Arabs living in, or in proximity to, Israel. Sad to say, but his insights are also relevant to anti-Semitism in Europe and in the United States.

In his book, THE JEWISH WAR FRONT, which was written and published in 1940, the year of his death, Jabotinsky contends that Nazi Germany's drive toward world dominion would have been a nonstarter had it not for anti-Semitism. He writes:

"Everybody knows that in propaganda the appeal of love is slow and lumbering in comparison with the appeal of hatred. Hatred is the piquant sauce which accelerates both the swallowing and the digestion of ideas and policies. And the 'sauce' can be fully effective only if the object of hatred is close at hand, familiar to all, and easily and safely attacked."

(Compare Arab Jew-hatred. Ingrained from childhood on, this hatred can remain dormant for years, and, like some unseen explosive, be ignited at any time by Arab despots.)

Returning to Jabotinsky: "Had the Nazi propaganda been confined from the beginning to preaching rebellion against the Versailles peace terms and the wickedness of the English or the French or the Americans, its theoretical appeal might have been still powerful, but its actual progress among the masses would have been so gradual that it is doubtful whether it would have gathered enough energy for an explosion."

Jabotinsky explains: "A Versailles Treaty [like the Balfour Declaration] is not a tangible object of real and palpable hatred; the emotions of the masses cannot be stirred by an object which can only be seen in the public library. On the other hand, hating the English or the Americans ... is either a torture to the hater himself, so long as he dare not express his hatred by deeds, or a very dangerous enterprise, if he tries prematurely to translate his hatred into action. There is only one ideal object for mass training in collective hate, and that is the Jews."

The Jew "is everywhere in reach; he can be pointed out at any street corner; and he can be insulted or assaulted with only the minimum of risk, or with none at all. To foster a movement of the Nazi type without the daily use of Jewish targets would be like staging a pageant without rehearsals."

Jabotinsky saw what few saw outside Germany: the extent to which the Nazi movement depended, during the two decades of its existence, on Jew-hatred for its vitality and driving power. Without referring to the Jews, National Socialism could have simply emphasized rearmament, the militarization of the Rhine district, the restoration of Germany's colonies, the Anschluss of Austria, and the annexation of the Sudetenland.

"All these aims could have been preached every whit as forcibly had their authors never thought of Israel and Judah. But they evidently felt, from the very beginning, that none of these aims would 'go down' properly with the masses unless they were duly seasoned. So not a single spoonful of this witches' brew was offered without the spice of anti-Semitism."

Now we can better appreciate why “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” are disseminated throughout the Arab world, including Egypt. This is the "spice" of Jew-hatred that enables Arab rulers to finance Arab terrorism and plan the next war on Israel. But what of the Jews?

Jabotinsky refers to a Jewish revolutionary in Tzarist Russia who uttered the oft-quoted formula: "Jewish blood is the best for oiling the wheels of progress." Yasser Arafat is applying this formula to Israel. Arafat regards Jewish blood as the lubricant of the “peace process.” Unless Jews are murdered on a regular basis, they will resist exchanging "territory for peace." In other words, by making the shedding of Jewish blood a commonplace, that is, by conditioning Jews to such bloodshed, Jewish opposition to the Oslo policy of appeasing the Arabs will dissipate.

Notice, however, that this shedding of Jewish blood requires not only Jew-hating Arabs, but self-hating Jews AND timid Jewish prime ministers to allow these Arabs to kill Jews with impunity!

Now, if Arab terrorists knew in advance that Israel's government would wreak upon them a degree of vengeance or loss far exceeding any Arab gains in killing Jews, Arab terrorism would soon cease. Unfortunately, Israel has no such government at the present time.

Strange: There was a time when Jews were able to establish in Tzarist Russia a self-defense unit which functioned as a permanent institution; and it was tolerated as such even though it was illegal! Jabotinsky notes that after the Tzar's downfall, and during the two years of the civil war (1918-19), Odessa, the largest Jewish community in the Ukraine, "was garrisoned by a volunteer body called the Jewish Battle Company. It was uniformed, lived in barracks, and was rather well armed. It was of course entirely illegal; but the thirteen governments that followed one another in occupying the city (the French, the Greeks, the White Russians, the Bolsheviks, the Ukrainians, etc.) all respected the illegal Jewish self-defense organization."

A volunteer Jewish anti-terrorist squad would be of course be illegal in Israel, where it's legal to release, arm, and pay thousands of Arab terrorists. Perhaps such an organization consisting primarily of American and Russian immigrants with military experience could be established in Israel?