One peculiar phenomenon that requires more in depth attention and analysis is the way in which Zionism relates to the figure the “Self-Hating Jew” and how this mythical figure serves to perpetuate the self-loathing of Zionist identity politics as a scapegoat.
Nowadays, the figure of the Self-Hating Jew is presented by propagators of Zionist Hasbara as an Enemy-Within, because they dare to criticize Israel. Again, the basic principle here is rooted in the simplicity of identity-thinking along categories that resonate with the proto-fascist axioms of Carl Schmitt: Friends versus Foes plus the disrupting role of the Stranger. For Zionists, Jews opposing Zionism do so because they hate Jews, as the reason to oppose Zionism can only be the hatred of Jews, just as National Socialism was allegedly created on the exclusive basis of the hatred of Jews. The fact that Jewish critics of Zionism are themselves Jews automatically turns them into Self-Hating Jews. However, this so-called logic only makes sense, once one has already submitted oneself to identity thinking.
Let us be clear here: Zionism as such is no better or worse than any other form of Identity Thinking, even if practices performed in the name of Zionism today, include horrendous war crimes and crimes against humanity with genocidal intent. Every radicalization of nationalism or racism can lead to horrendous crimes against others simply because of the logic of identity thinking: it is either us or them. The only reason I focus on Zionism is because it is a European invention and is currently able to exist only with continued “Western” support that goes as far as destroying the core principles and aspirations of International Law and Human Rights. For example, whereas the German state might have looked away when Saudi Arabia were committing heinous war crimes against people in Yemen, there was never a justification of these war crimes, only embarrassed silence. No protester against Saudi Arabia was ever threatened with deportation; no manifestation of a protest against Saudi Arabia was ever banned or broken up by violent police action. No cultural event was ever cancelled because it included critique of Saudi Arabia. Hence, we have to acknowledge, that exposing identity thinking at the core of Zionism is more threatening to the European Establishment than when applied to other examples.
Yet, there is an important contradiction. The alleged Self-Hating-Jews who oppose Zionism are not being hated by those more commonly referred to as anti-Semites (.e.g. non-Jews who criticize Zionism). In fact, within the anti-Genocide protest movements, Jewish voices play a prominent role to the extent that they have been disproportionally present among those who have been arrested. Then, all of a sudden, identity-thinking takes a radical turn towards idealism: The reason why “normal anti-Semites” seem to get along so well with Self-Hating-Jews has nothing to do with identity, but with shared ideas. In the same way, Zionists can like people and closely cooperate who have openly expressed their hatred for Jews (such as Orban and Trump), as long as these Jews that oppose Zionism. It is precisely at this junction, that the fundamental fallacy of identity thinking turns into opportunistic Bad Faith.
Those who openly espouse Zionism as a worthy cause do not really care about Jews, instead they care much more about Israel. Many of these might (for example many Christian Zionists) actually dislike Jews because they prefer all Jews to go to Israel. Whereas they can see their own allignments as being pragmatic and instrumental, and can set aside the identity-political premise of Fiends versus Foes (and Strangers) for strategic and cynical reasons, they deny this to others. Their opponents are always trapped by identity thinking. This can indeed be completely cynical, it can also be mere stupidity, it probably is a bit of both.
What cynical Identity-Thinking above all rejects, is the possibility that there are alternatives to identity thinking. The possibility that one can oppose Zionism without needing to conceive of Jews as an enemy (let alone an enemy within). Indeed, the very possibility that one can oppose identity thinking in the name of something much more worthwhile, such as harmonizing within the Web of Life by reducing entropy, has to be rejected, because it would diametrically oppose the interests that have remained hidden.
Harmonizing within the Web of Life and reducing entropy are incompatible with imperialism, patriarchy and capitalism. It is for this reason that so much has been invested in maintaining identity thinking as the foundation of ordinary political discourse and upholding the rights of states to exist, even if they defecate on International Law with genocidal intent. The stakes are very high and Palestinians are the unfortunates caught in the crossfire.
This leads to the logical conclusion that the settler-colonial project of Zionism is not primarily an expression of the innate hatred against Palestinian people (or “Arabs”). Whereas that hatred might indeed be stirred by massive investments in propaganda in education, entertainment, journalism, politics and academics, it is not the cause, but merely a means to mobilize more money, resources and energy for the military apparatus. After all, the Establishment still needs poor sods to die for their cause. The Establishment are those who benefit from warfare, from imperialism from patriarchy, from capitalism. They are not some mystical cabal of globalists. They are the men behind the men on Epstein’s contact list, they are the men behind the men on the Panama Papers and so on. They have names and faces and they are not bound by identity, but by interests and they can be discovered and will thus invest huge amounts of time, energy and resources to prevent this from happening.
This is where criticism of capitalism needs to become much sharper. Bourgeoisie is not an identity, let alone defined by ethnicity. Proletariat (or working class) is not an identity either. Instead, they are asymmetrical relational entities, abstractions, defined by incompatible interests. Those who represent the interests of the billionaire class, do not work together, or even conspire, because they have a similar identity; they first and foremost do so because they share the same interests. Hence, the most powerful opposition to Zionism is the alliance between Jewish and non-Jewish voices who focus on interests rather than on allocating identities. The concept of the Self-Hating-Jew is exactly an anti-Semitic trope borne out of the fear that those interests are being uncovered. Being for or against the project of Israel has nothing to do with being Jewish, but has everything to do with an understanding or a denial of interests in relation to the Web of Life.
However, the anti-Semitic trope of the Self-Hating Jew also has a powerful historical resonance. It was exactly the figure invoked by the founders of the Zionist movement as part of an argument in favour of establishing the State of Israel. The early representatives of the Zionist Movement invoked and affirmed anti-Semitic stereotypes as “true” to support their argument. Whether they actually believed it (in the sense of self-loathing) or merely deployed it strategically makes no difference to the desired outcome. However, it does open the door to a libidinal anxiety that comes with identity thinking: the doubt that one is indeed worthless as the resonance of the neurosis of alienation.
Having to perform so many crimes in the name of civilization does of course produce a dark-side and this is the doubt and guilt that engender self-loathing and its repression. Liberally adopting Freud, Adorno and Marcuse, I would therefore pose the question whether all forms of identity thinking bear the sigil of modernist neurosis and are thus dialectically engendered by self-loathing and neurotic narcissism? This may also explain the extreme symbolic violence that is being invoked when accusing someone of anti-Semitism, especially by highlighting the self-hating as the psychological condition. This would resemble the ego-defence mechanism of projection and why in terms of identity thinking, every accusation is indeed a confession. There is also a subtle difference between self-loathing and self-hatred. The latter are steeped in the language of agonistique, the former in the language of disappointment. Self-loathing is the fear of being rejected by the Father, i.e. the Law. The State, it expresses a desire for affirmation from an Authority Figure. In this sense, it is not just an expression of neurosis but also of the slave morality that Schopenhauer referred to as Hegelry.
However, it is much better to reject identity-thinking as well as its idealist-mythological side-show altogether. Identity thinking always invokes Bad Faith and thus becomes dishonest, disloyal, untrustworthy, unreliable, deceptive, deceitful and entropic. It is no special virtue to “love your own” if this presupposes that you should “hate everyone else”, who is not supporting your interests.
Zionism needs the Self-Hating-Jew not just as a scapegoat but also as a disciplinary device. The “argument” out forward by Michael Laitman that Self-Hating-Jews bear responsibility for the persistence of anti-Semitism is of course not just the same as Theodor Herzl’s rhetorical cynicism, it is in itself an enactment of A Jew-Hating-Jew in its performative contradiction. The “wrong kind of Jews” are the enemy within that enable and perhaps even justify anti-Semitism, because they are the wrong kind of Jews (and not Zionists). Hence his conclusion that the choice that Jews are facing is exactly the same as the one Meir Kahane used to justify his terrorist organization (the Jewish Defence League): it is either Zionism of Death. Defenders of Zionism thus resort to a very similar logic of argumentation as actual Anti-Semites, who consider those who associate with Jews to be traitors of their own people.
It should come as no surprise that Zionists (regardless of whether they are Jewish or not) are particularly aggressive against these “Wrong Kinds of Jews” and effortlessly resonate with anti-Semitic stereotypes and tropes. But exactly those accused of being anti-Semitic, because they oppose the Zionist project and its violent implementation, show that this is not at all about identity, but instead about Life. We cannot be free until all Jewish people are free, and not just those whose alleged freedom relies on crimes against humanity as these are not free, but instead have lost themselves in self-loathing and anxiety.
Disaffected Sociology 
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