October 28, 2023

NEO: Hating the Israelis and Jews even more after the October 7 attacks: why?

The more the Palestinians and Hamas rage and commit barbaric mayhem, the more terrible the Israeli offenses must be that sparked the rage – at least, that’s how the minds of the Left’s Romantics operate. And “Romantic” is not a compliment.

(2) Related to #1 is that cognitive dissonance is mentally painful and people ordinarily seek to resolve it not by changing their minds about something but figuring out a way to adjust to the new information and keep their old belief system. This article discusses the phenomenon:

“Western activists for Palestinians”, he added, “are dedicated to two nearly theological precepts: that Israel is evil, and that no Palestinian action is ever connected to any Palestinian outcome”. Hamas’s gruesome attack, he concluded, “poses a threat to this worldview, and the only way to resolve it is by heightening Israel’s imagined malevolence. The terrorist atrocities don’t trigger a recoiling from the cause in whose name they were carried out; they lead to an even greater revulsion at the victim.”

It’s as though there’s a balance scale in which the greater the Palestinian offense, the greater Israel’s crimes must have been in causing such a reaction. That way the person’s belief system is kept intact. The MSM leads the way on this.

The amount of antisemitism pouring out of American colleges as been astonishing to see over the past couple of weeks: Campus antisemites are vile but administrators who protect them are just as complicit. “Crazed college students taught delusions about Israel being ‘occupied land’ or an ‘apartheid’ state will also always exist. Again, the issue is less the brainwashed students than administrations that have perpetually given a pass to language that distorts the truth and threatens Jewish students. These kids have been beaten up — both rhetorically and physically.”

Plus ça change:

Posted at 7:14 am by Ed Driscoll